$25 PL at party

[Baelwulfe]

Is it more correct just to limp in in these games with almost all your hands... excluding AA,KK,AKs? Or should I be raising pre-flop?
My first venture into PL and it has my nerves crumbling

[Richie Rich]

You should always raise with high pocket pairs or AK to limit the number of opponents and number of other hands that may be able to beat you. After all, you don't want to give anyone the chance to draw out on you for cheap, or catch two pair with K10 to beat your pocket As.

In any PL/NL game, you should be able to measure "what kind of table" you're at in the first orbit or two. Is there a lot of raising and re-raising before the flop? If so, then make sure you're only betting great hands in EP, and good hands in MP. (Remember, your 7 /images/graemlins/club.gif8 /images/graemlins/club.gif may look dandy at first when you're UTG, but are you willing to call a $2 raise to play that hand when it comes back to you?) If a lot of limping is taking place without raising, then you're welcome to limp in with a wide variety of different hands from any position.

I know you're probably anxious to get started in PL/NL games (which are a lot more exciting than microlimit games), but maybe you should spend an evening watching a couple tables to see how it's done. Watch for raises and betting patterns to see what kinds of hands they have at showdown. While experience is the best teacher, it can also be an expensive one when you're just starting out.

** NOTE: A lot of ex-microlimit players come to play at PL/NL 25, so don't be surprised to see people calling a $4 raise before the flop with A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif7 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif...they just haven't learned yet. **

Good Luck! /images/graemlins/smile.gif