You can safely avoid open-limping altogether. The first spot you might want to try it out is in the small blind versus aggressive big blind players. This doesn't even carry a "stigma 
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Originally posted by YohanN7
Originally posted by redskwerl
Originally posted by MrT61
thats an easy1 ; in SH-play, there is no hand that fits an openlimpingstrategywhy, tough?
That is a good question. I think that every play that carries a "stigma", like limping and donking, probably are bad, but nowhere nearly as bad as people might think. As I recall, even Cepheus does a small amount of open limping, and that is HU. Disclaimer: I haven't recently checked out on what Cepheus does, so I may remember wrong. But Cepheus once called me down with J high, so it has quite a wide variety of plays - all GTO.
Head's up is an entirely different matter. If your open limps are not getting 3B widely you get extremely good odds to play the hand in position when limping,, so that even very weak hands can be profitable to play this way.
I made the query because the standard line over the years in short handed LH poker is just to open-raise first in every time. This is an easy way to avoid giving away information preflop, and often we can steal the blinds or take down the pot with c-betting (granted, this is not as easy as it was back in the day). i agree mostly with what MrT61 is saying, I would encourage an inexperienced short handed online limit holdem player to just open raise first in every time as a rule, and work on improving their post flop game. Of course you should adjust to extreme circumstances, for example a button that literally 3-bets 100 percent of his range versus your open - I have seen these players!
No, heads up isn't an entirely different matter. As you say, the odds justify a call with almost all hands, but raising is nearly always better. The real rationale, I believe, is that a tiny, tiny amount of (balanced!) open limping allows you to expand your range to nearly 100%. Cepheus (still assuming I remember correctly) open calls very, very little. Best is if you check out yourself (search and you shall find the Ceph:) ) But Cepheus doesn't ever 4-bet on the button. This shows that deception is correctly a part of the game.
Originally posted by YohanN7
No, heads up isn't an entirely different matter. As you say, the odds justify a call with almost all hands, but raising is nearly always better. The real rationale, I believe, is that a tiny, tiny amount of (balanced!) open limping allows you to expand your range to nearly 100%. Cepheus (still assuming I remember correctly) open calls very, very little. Best is if you check out yourself (search and you shall find the Ceph:) ) But Cepheus doesn't ever 4-bet on the button. This shows that deception is correctly a part of the game.
Well, I was talking about an exploitative strategy against players that don't 3 bet enough - so you can open limp trash because of the great odds you get. If you are playing GTO against most populations I imagine you are missing out big time. It's an entirely different matter because you are in position heads up. I'd still open raise most of the time though!
Interesting to hear about those strategies from Cepheus, thanks. BTW I am not playing limit these days and although I'd be really interested to look into Cepheus, I'm unlikely to find the time in the near future. I would agree with not 4 betting pre in position in heads up pots, indeed this was the trend when I was playing 5-6 years ago, but I imagine it will four bet multiway......
Yohan, I release the confusion now, what I meant was head's up is a completely different situation, not that the way of playing was entirely different. That would have been a better way of phrasing it come to think about it - so actually we are both saying the same thing more or less 