Limping Preflop in a Cash Game?

In the large ante games, e.g. 9 max 100bb SB Ante, preflop strategies differ significantly from traditional No-Limit Hold’em poker games without an ante.

Here’s why:

More Dead Money in the Pot

The presence of a small blind ante adds a significant amount of dead money to the pot right from the start.
This lowers the SPR (Stack-to-Pot Ratio), making limping more attractive.

Raising becomes less appealing because raise size needs to increase, narrowing the range of hands that can be profitably raised.

Building a much bigger pot preflop also increases your commitment in a scenario where ranges would prefer to be wider. Due to the smaller SPR, it's easier to get all the money in before the river.

Different Position Dynamics

The first four positions (UTG, UTG1, MP, and LJ) play a limp-only first-in strategy.

In contrast, positions from HJ onwards (HJ, CO, BTN) have the option to either limp or raise to 6x.

This creates unique scenarios and range constructions that you won’t commonly find in games without an ante. You can't just assume that limping was a poor play and iso really wide like you might in a standard 6 max no ante online game.

Don’t miss this opportunity to stay ahead of the pack. Master the nuances of these large ante games before others have chance to catch up.In the Cash section of the RangeConverter lobby you can now find a couple of those 9max ante cash games.

Additionally, there’s a new set of postflop data for Live Cash NLHE 9-max SB Ante 100bb. It was run using these limp or raise first in preflop strategies.

Does it make sense to limp preflop in a cash game?

Back to Articles