[Hoss1193]

Routinely limping with AA...nope, don't think that's a good idea. Most of the reasons have already been covered....you drive out some drawing hands that could suck out on you, you tend to get the calls (or even re-raises...yum) from hands you already have dominated, and best of all, lousy players are going to call you with hands that are hugely -EV (and therefore +EV for you). LIMPING with AA just makes it cheaper for more players to come in, and they're NOT making a mistake with hands like KTo, K8s, Q9s, etc....and then you're going to feel like a fool when these folks flop 2 pair on you.

It is an interesting point, as previously mentioned, that the types of hands with which it is considered correct to call or, even more often, re-raise are PRECISELY the hands you want to be up against: KK-TT, AKs/o, AQs/o, KQs/o. I had never thought about it this way, but it's true.

Separate but related topic, and I think this is relevant to the OP's post. Is it necessarily correct to ALWAYS raise with AA? Starting hand standards are pretty familiar to many players (even those who don't necessarily follow them). If a tight aggressive player folds many, calls a few, and raises a few hands, after a while even the dimmer bulbs at the table will figure out "hmm...a raise from THAT guy...I better watch out". Then an A flops, and even if he's got an A-low hand that he would otherwise merrily bet, raise, or at LEAST check-call to the river...against YOU, he might actually muck it. (happened to me earlier today!).

So I think it worthwhile to SOMETIMES limp with AA, just to keep 'em guessing. One thing I read some time ago (I forget the book...it was either WLLH or maybe one of Krieger's books) was to randomize an occasional limp with AA (or KK). Suggested method: Raise with AA or KK, UNLESS they're both red...that's about 17% of the time (1 of 6 ways to pair up AA or KK). That way...if you limp, and then come alive on the flop when an A hits, it may be harder for them to put you on AA because you didn't raise preflop, and they may call you down all the way with something they would otherwise muck. Conversely, later in the game, an opponent may give you credit for a stronger hand than something you limped with...because he/she knows that SOMETIMES you limp preflop with AA/KK, and it may tip them over the edge to fold a marginal but best hand against you if you bet out a quality draw on the come.

The idea of randomizing it with something like "both red", "both black", etc, is so that you don't tie these attempts to things like position, number of people in the pot, etc, where people may pick up a pattern.

My thought is that this sort of deception measure assumes that your opponents are observant/thinking enough that they'll notice the deviation from standard play, and then actually adjust their play against you accordingly. This leads me to conclude that such an approach may be more appropriate to mid-limit games with halfway decent players, rather than the typical low-limit games most of us play against the true fish.

Still, it's a feature I HAVE incorporated into my own game. I haven't attempted to quantify if it's an overall +EV trick over the long term....I don't know if there IS a way to quantify it, because even PT can't tell what's going on in the minds of your opponents. But I DO know that whenever I show down the (very) occasional pocket AA or KK in a B&M after limping preflop, I see enough raised eyebrows and muttered comments "well, I didn't put you on THAT" to believe that it has a positive effect in the minds of my opponents, and makes me more unpredictable when they're trying to put me on a hand after I "come out of nowhere" with a check-raise.

I know this is somewhat dissenting from the mathematical approach to the game...I'd be interested to hear from others what you think.