Hello Errol,
I was just at our local casino playing in a 1-2nl full ring 10 handed.
From the moment i sat down to the moment i went home empty handed i was totally confused.
Every player except two ( i was one of the two) tried to limp every single pot and would call any raise or reraise that happened ( if i was not in the hand there were no raises pre flop)! It was like they didnt have a hand range at all. They were limping with AKs, Aces, Kings, 72o, 82o, i mean anything. About 10 min. into the game i looked down to see pocket aces in CO+2. Not to my surprise every villian in front of me limped! I raised the pot to 16 bucks. BB and UTG makes the call, everyone else folded. Flop come 2h3skd. Both villians ck so i raise full pot because of the flush draw. BB folds and UTG calls. Turn comes 10s. villian cks again so i bet full pot again thinking he is chasing the flush or has the king, either case i sure that i am way ahead at this moment. River hit 4s. Villian goes all in with the 20 he had remaining. I make the call to find out he had pocket fours in the hole and set up on the river. Crap!

Next hand and next full buy in before i went home scratching my head till next morning. i looked down at AJs. I raised in late position and get one caller. Flop comes Jh8s2d. villian bets 30 into me so i just go all in because im not happy, villian calls and show 82o and drags the pot down.
Crap
So when the table is so live, how should my style be, wait for nut hand then take them to value town? Or should i be limping every good hand with them?
Any help here would be great man.
Thanks
atmc1026

just rereading my post and i made an error on the flop with the aces.
there were 2 diamonds on the flop!
atmc1026

First of all .. you couldn't have played the aces hand any better.
If you get set up like that you can't really do anything about it.

In a game of 1/2 I would suggest that you raise more hands you are thinking of playing. Ie. 6's up in position and AQ Ak. But make sure you are in late position when doing so. In early position you want to limp in with pocket pairs that are below 10's. I do not advice you to limp in with strong hands like 10's and up (unless the table is very aggressive and you can reraise).

In position you may limp in with hands that give you a huge potential of making a monster pot. Remember fundamental poker states that you should bet out in late position with most hands such as suited connectors because you will disguise your hand when you hit or you can semi bluff to take down the pot with a good board for your hand. However when you are facing a table with a bunch of limpers, ie. nits who are waiting for sets and guys who are waiting to reraise preflop with big hands you may want to limp a lot more. This is because you will be able to crack the limper’s big hands. If you can outplay your opponents on the flop and the game is cheap to see flops then you should get in to a lot of pots. Remember this only applies to 10 max games when the whole table is limping.

You should realize that the game is a lot different that 6 handed ring games. The principles are the same however people play a lot sneakier live in 10 max ring games. Trying to limp reraise etc. You should also realize that people don't really have a set hand range when the stakes are a lot lower ie. 1/2 nl with 100 max buyin. So they tend to make enormous mistakes.

In a micro limit game like 1/2 my suggestion is that you should keep raising your premium hands (strong hands) in late position and when there is one or two limpers you should raise the suited connectors and pocket pairs over 6's. But when the whole table limps and you are on the button there is just no need to raise a mid suited connector. These guys who are limp folding are purely retarded because they will never get paid off on their big hands. The pot will simply not be big enough because of the lack of preflop raises.

Cheers,

Errol