[ohnonotthat]

As to your first question -

Raising with 77 - TT here is fine though I doubt you'll be very successful at isolating opponents at PARTY 1-2 or even 2-4 (see: the guy on your left [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]). Your reason for raising here is to punish limpy for his loose play; if doubling the price discourages others from calling that's great but consider it a bonus - not your primary objective.

As to the your stubborn port-side neighbor's [atrocious] cold-calls with hands such as K-9/off -

This is one of those situations where your opponent's bad call hurts you more than it does him.*

It's also one of those times when his bad play is actually correct play - albeit totally by accident. What makes calling a [legitimate] raise with K-9 a bad play is the possibility (likelyhood might be the better word) that the raisor has you badly dominated (with a better King or a pair of 9s, Ts, Js, or Qs) or even crucified (with K-K or A-A). If you knew he had none of these hands you would be correct to call. Naturally your opponent here had no way of knowing what you held (nor is it probable he even thought this far).

Note that if the loose limper has trash (as he often will) you and the overcaller both profit; the limper's contribution is dead (or near dead) money and as such allows for more than one player to [correctly] contest for it.

* This statement assumes that no more than the three of you see the flop; if the pot becomes multi-way K-9/off becomes toast. For that matter, once you see the chance for a heads-up or 3-way matchup go by the wayside you'd just as soon see as many callers preflop as possible. Medium pairs play best against one opponent, OK against two, OK against many but very poorly against three or four; this is a clear case of "I'd prefer you come alone but if you must bring guests bring as many as you can".