[pokernicus]

I was reading through Brier and Ciaffone's Middle Limit Hold'em book, and they pose the following question in their pre-flop chapter.

Suppose you have Td9d on the button. Three people limp and the cutoff raises. What do you do?

They suggest that one fold in this situation. I figured this to be the safe play to make. But as I thought about it some more, I began to wonder: is this really is an auto-fold?

It seems like there may be a number of reasonable situations where calling makes sense. My thinking is that the limpers will almost definitely call, and there is a chance that one or both of the blinds will call. You've got a reasonable drawing hand with T9s (in what will likely be a five to six way pot) and you also have position the rest of the hand. (One disadvantage is that your relative position might not be all that great; in particular, the raiser is immediately on your right, so if the flop clobbers you, and if it is checked to him and he bets, a raise on your part might blow away the field instead of building a pot).

I guess my questions are: 1) What factors would you consider when deciding whether to call/fold in this spot. And, on a related note, 2) are there a reasonable set of circumstances where you might consider calling the raise? (e.g., can you justify a call if the cut-off is a maniac and raises every other hand...)