So my big Poker revelation is huge!

It’s basic math I should’ve clocked years ago: limping is a leak. A real one. The kind that quietly drains your stack like a slow puncture in a bike tire. Once you see the numbers, you can’t unsee them.

You only get pocket pairs about 6% of the time. You only get two Broadway cards—J through A—about 9% of the time. And if you want them suited and Broadway, you’re down to roughly 3%.

So when you limp in just to “see a flop,” you’re usually doing it with statistical junk. You’re also inviting four or five other people into the pot, all of whom now have perfectly decent chances of outdrawing you.

In other words, limping isn’t caution. It’s actually charity.

Poker runs on probability, but most people use that as cosplay for being “disciplined” while they quietly torch equity. Limping feels fiscally conservative. In reality, you’re paying full price for terrible implied odds.

You’re giving hands like 76s, T9s and baby pairs a cheap ticket into a pot they should have to fight for. Those are exactly the hands that crack you when the board comes 6-7-8 rainbow and your top pair suddenly looks prehistoric.

So I cut limping out of my game. If I’m entering a pot, I’m either folding or raising. Nothing in between.

You don’t sit down like a tourist. You sit down like someone who intends to own the flop. If a hand isn’t strong enough to raise, it isn’t strong enough to play. That one rule pulled me out of the statistical swamp.

It gets even better in late position. Once you accept that position is a superpower—that acting last lets you raise wider from the cutoff and button—your range opens up properly.

Suddenly those marginal broadways are fine, because you’re not wandering into five-way chaos anymore. You’re the one controlling the action. You’re the one setting the terms.

The part that really fried my brain: pocket aces, the golden child, win around 85% heads-up…but only about 30% of the time when eight people see a flop.

Limping with aces is basically self-sabotage dressed up as patience. Raising isolates. Raising protects your equity. Raising is the job.

The rule I landed on is simple, not easy: stop limping. Raise with intention. Fold with conviction.

Force the math to work for you instead of against you.