DECISION POINT: You are playing in a daily live tournament with blinds at 1,000/2,000 and you are the effective stack at the table with 38K (19BBs). You’ve observed the field as being very passive with many players limping. The UTG, MP2, and Cutoff players limp and the Small Blind completes. Action is on you in the Big Blind with 8♠8♦.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing a daily live tournament with a very passive field with lots of limping. The blinds are 1,000/2,000 with no ante in play. Most of the stacks are around 100k and we are the shortest with 38K to start the hand.

We are dealt pocket eights in the Big Blind. We get an open limp from UTG, MP2 and Cutoff call, and the Small Blind completes. Action is on us with a middle pocket pair and 10k in the pot before we act. There is no real “GTO” solution for this spot because our opponents aren’t supposed to have limping ranges from early position, so we have to fall back on range analysis and what we know about each opponent to make the best decision.

Any time we can potentially add 20-25% to our stack uncontested by moving all-in, we have a compelling reason to at least consider going for the shove. In this particular situation, we also have a very solid hand that is likely favored over our opponents’ ranges and has reasonable equity even when called. It is very unlikely that anyone other than UTG is calling preflop with a very strong range, so the most important range to consider is that of the UTG limper.

In many live games we will see players limping in from all positions with wide ranges with hands they “want to see a flop with”. This limping range typically includes Ax combinations, hands with two broadway cards, pocket pairs, and suited connectors.

Against this range we would be way ahead and our hand would easily warrant moving all-in. There some opponents who may be a little more sophisticated and will limp big hands to trap, particularly at tables where there is a lot of preflop raising going on. If we had specific information on the UTG player’s potential to limp with strong hands as well this decision becomes much easier.

We should also consider the overall table. Is this a table where we are able to pick up chips easily in uncontested pots? Since we are currently the shortest stack at the table the answer to this is likely no. However, if we are likely to take down uncontested pots with a decent frequency in future orbits checking becomes a higher frequency option.

Most players aren’t capable of limping truly balanced ranges and there are only a handful of combinations of big hands available. Consequently, players who employ a limping strategy in early position can easily start to limp too many hands. Without a specific read that the UTG player limps infrequently and does so with strong hands, the ability to add over 25% to our stack by winning an uncontested pot when we move all-in is far too enticing to worry about the few times they could show up with a big hand.

Moving all-in is the best play.