[GreywolfNYC]

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Here's the text from Chris Ferguson's site that someone else referred to:

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1. Never limp in. PUMP IT or DUMP IT!
One of the most important rules of Hold'Em -- Limit or No Limit -- is to never, ever call as the first player to enter a pot before the flop. Either pump up the pot with a raise, or dump your cards in the muck. If your hand isn't strong enough for a raise, it's too weak for a call. This tactic makes it more difficult for your opponents to read your hand, and it makes it impossible for the big blind to ever see a flop for free when you're in the hand.

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For the vast majority of situations, I agree. In fact the only exception I can think of offhand would be if we did a sort of thought experiment and imagined an incredibly loose-passive game where everybody wants to have fun and limps in to see a flop and calls every raise. You're dealt 22 under the gun. In this hypothetical situation it would be correct to limp, because you basically know ahead of time that you're getting the correct odds to hit your set (in essence, the incredible passiveness of the other 9 players at the table sort of does the work that having position does in a normal game). Then again, this is a pretty far stretch.

I think the only hands that should even be considered for limping regularly are pocket pairs, and the only ones for limping occasionally (to throw people off) would be hands like suited connectors and every now and again a big hand (but only if you're playing against observant players, of course - the sole purpose of that move would be to essentially buy a "get into flop free" card later on in the evening when you want to see a cheap flop from up front with a pocket pair or something.)

In almost all cases though, I think Jesus is correct. (Sorry, it's true, but I just couldn't resist wording the sentence in that way [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

Raising:
a) prevents the blinds from seeing a cheap/free flop
b) announces your intention to take control of this hand
c) puts others on the defensive most of the time, so you have chances to win the hand when you dont flop your set or flush/straight draw (whereas your post-flop aggression won't command as much respect if it wasn't preceded by pre-flop aggression, so you won't be able to steal as many pots)
d) it's harder to put you on a hand if you do the same thing every time (this can be offset by raising/limping randomly, though)
e) in my opinion, if you're going to make a play which you think might be marginally erroneous, always make this error on the side of aggression.

On another erroneous note, I must offer this little appeal to authority as it were; Jesus Ferguson is an experimental poker player and thinker almost to a Da Vincean degree. Meaning, he's going to challenge all the mantras of 'proper play' not to be a contrarian, but to see which ones are correct and which ones aren't - in other words, to determine proper play by experiment and calculation, rather than just 'what seems to work' after a few hundred hours in the $200/$400 at the Bellagio or 'what Sklansky/Jones/Krieger/Vorhaus/Miller' says (nothing against them of course, I have of course benefitted greatly from their work - I'm simply referring to the sort of 'gasp! You can't play that under-the-gun! That's only a Group Six hand!!' dogmatic non-thinking that a lot of players couch themselves in). So my appeal to authority is all other things being equal, I'd put more weight on what he has to say about poker than someone who doesn't take an approach to the game that's grounded in experiment and...well, facts and evidence.

Of course, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.

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I think you're right, for the most part. I think Ferguson is entirely correct for the reasons set forth above.
The habit of open-limping is a tough one to break. I used to open-limp with a variety of hands and in general, it was costing me a lot. After much more experience and individual coaching with a cash game pro, I have stopped doing it. My results have improved significantly as a result and my table image gets a lot more respect.