There is a classic term in poker that signifies players who are not very good and are merely contributing money to the poker economy……their money is commonly referred to as “dead money”. This needs some clarification because the term first originated in tournament poker. It basically meant the buy-ins from all of the players whose games were woefully short of being good enough.
I can understand this to a large extent as the requirements for winning large MTT poker tournaments basically mean that a player needs to know good solid tournament strategy. They must also be skilled at short handed play when games start to break up and know the difference in hand values from tournaments to cash games and vice versa.
You need to be lucky to win a poker tournament of any kind but the skilled tournament players know how to deal with that luck when it arrives. But the term “dead money” applies to tournament poker far more than it does to cash games. When bad players get lucky during the early stages of a tournament and amass chips then they cannot cash them out. They end up losing the chips back because their unskilful play means that they don’t play fast enough when the blinds rise and the table numbers shrink.
But in cash games this doesn’t apply so a novice player is no longer the “dead money” that they might have been in the large MTT. They can quit whenever they like and take their winnings with them and if they so wished…….never play online poker again. But yet when it comes to limpers, many intermediate players see their money as dead money when this is a long way from the truth.
Seeing a single limper or several limpers is not a green light to attack them with weak or mediocre hands. Even if the stakes are low then you need an advantage in order to attack. Let us look at the ideal limper scenario. An early or middle position player limps and it is then folded to you in the cut-off with Qh-9c. Many players would raise here and raising isn’t a bad poker play. But we have to look at the reason why you are raising.
If you are raising to diversify your actions then that is not a bad reason although in low-stakes online poker it isn’t necessary. Or if you are raising to build a pot for if you make your hand then once again the reason is viable. But if you are raising simply because there has been one limper and their money along with the blinds in easy money then your thinking is skewed. The Q-9 could be dominated to begin with and many limpers defend their limps with gusto.
There are also three players still to be heard from who may either have a hand or suspect what you are doing and adjust accordingly. What if you raise and get called by the limper and miss the flop and they check? Will you end up firing multiple barrels all because you wanted to steal some blind money and the “dead money” from the limper?