Raising preflop in middle position

Just a small question, a couple of weeks ago somebody pointed out that you should generally never limp in MP when you're first to act; you should raise or fold. Generally speaking, do you all agree to this?

Personally I still consider just limping first in with hands like A8s and JTs when I'm in like MP1 with loose players to my left; should I be raising these perhaps?

[ReadyEddie]

yeah i think everyone agrees.

Ill raise or fold A8s, depends on the table, ill most likely fold JTs.

[@bsolute_luck]

well i'm glad you posted this as i would have to disagree.

MP1 is still considered EP for me, so i'm not in "raise/fold" territory yet- 1 or 2 more seats and i'm there.

loose/passive tables, i'll limp here with suited connectors and suited Aces w/o problem. i begin to debate pocket pairs and folding weak-offsuit cards (KTo and stuff that you generally fold this early anyways).

MP1 is still too far to steal especially at loose/passive tables where it will most likely be multiway and you're getting cold called a lot and OOP for the rest of the hand, but it is unlikely that you will get isolated for open-limping.

aggressive tables is where you fold more. weak/tight tables you open-raise more.

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
Just a small question, a couple of weeks ago somebody pointed out that you should generally never limp in MP when you're first to act; you should raise or fold. Generally speaking, do you all agree to this?

Personally I still consider just limping first in with hands like A8s and JTs when I'm in like MP1 with loose players to my left; should I be raising these perhaps?

[/ QUOTE ]

One of the main reasons to raise is that there has to be a decent chance that you will win unopposed. The more losseness there is behind you the less incentive there is to raise these types of hands.

With several loose players behind me I am more inclined to limp both of these hands. However I still would consider raising if I though I would still get a 4-5way pot.

[ QUOTE ]
Just a small question, a couple of weeks ago somebody pointed out that you should generally never limp in MP when you're first to act; you should raise or fold. Generally speaking, do you all agree to this?

Personally I still consider just limping first in with hands like A8s and JTs when I'm in like MP1 with loose players to my left; should I be raising these perhaps?

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO I think you generally should be folding these hands from MP1. I think open-limping these type of hands in MP1 is . They require multi-way action and unless the table is very,very loose you have no idea you are going to be getting enough people entering the pot. Even worse you might get isolated by somone raising behind you. The only way I openlimp these is if you have 3 super loose players and loose blinds left to act.

When the table is loose but not that loose, I think raising these types of hands is also bad. If you get only one or two cold callers you are playing a pretty marginal hand OOP.

[newhizzle]

i think you can still limp a hand like JTs in MP1, but it depends on the looseness and aggressiveness of your table, in MP3 you should never be open-limping

Ok, thank you for the answer(s), I guess I'm not that way off then; it of course really depends on the players to the left of me. But I still see different opinions on this so if anyone else has something to add, please do.

[ErrantNight]

In general that's good advice.

If there's some bad loose players to your left, and particularly if you've noticed people love to jump on the limping bandwagon, sure, open limp.

Of course if you're finding yourself against bad loose players that will cold-call too much, particularly if they can be pushed off hands/fold too much/are transparent postflop, then raising becomes more attractive.

against loose calling stations that will cold-call too much and where you're invariably being forced to showdown then raising becomes less ideal. Still a possibility with A8s, however.

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
against loose calling stations that will cold-call too much and where you're invariably being forced to showdown then raising becomes less ideal. Still a possibility with A8s, however.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, giving a choice I would prefer to raise the A8s here as opposed to the JTs.

[BigEndian]

If you follow this rule until you get a better understanding and feel for when to play differently, you can't go too far wrong.

I think this is probably where people come up with this being the general case. No, it doesn't cover all situations and it isn't the most profitable all the time. But it's better than calling not knowing why.

- Jim