Limp-Reraising From the Small Blind Against a GTO Opponent
Today I have something a little different to share — an analysis of a hand I played against the poker bot, PokerSnowie.
In the hand we are playing 50/100 with stacks of 10,000 (100 big blinds). It folded around to me in the small blind where I had 6♦4♣. I chose to limp, and the big blind raised to 300.
In this game, I was working on a small blind limping strategy to see what PokerSnowie would say about it. As I discuss below, I'm also a fan of limp-reraising from the small blind as it puts your opponents in tough spots with a lot of the hands with which they might raise. Here I did limp-reraise to 1,100, and PokerSnowie called.
The flop came K♠J♣4♥, and with my range advantage I bet 700 into the pot of 2,200. PokerSnowie plays a "game theory optimal" style, which includes often calling whenever pot odds are good, and here PokerSnowie did call.
The turn was the 8♦ and I bet 1,600, just under half the pot, with an idea that I would be barreling again on the river as a bluff, as a call would leave me with about a pot-sized bet remaining.
I’ll stop there and let you watch how things played out and listen to my explanation as a talk through what evolves into a big triple-barrel bluff:
In this hand, what was my biggest mistake — limp-reraising preflop with junk or jamming the river as a bluff?
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,700,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
