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Jeremiah Smith wrote a series of articles on playing small stakes tournaments. I like the articles fine, and think his overall focus is right one, which emphasizes selective aggression, making the point that you can't just sit around and wait for great hands. However, there were three moves he suggested which struck me as questionable. After thinking about it some more, one of the three moves seems reasonable, but the other two still seem questionable to me.

1)Limp with AA, hoping several limp behind, and it gets raised, so you can re-raise the raiser and pick up a lot of dead money.

2)Check raise on the flop with a hand you think might be best but aren't sure (like 99 when the flop comes T x x).

3)Raise in position with drawing hands like KJ down to 98. after a couple of limpers have come in, planning to follow up with a bluff if the flop misses.

Regarding 1), it seems to me that if you want to hope for something, you'd be better off pushing and hoping someone calls you. Just making a standard raise expecting to get it heads up, or all-in if lucky, seems like the best play. The only way I could see limping was if there was a maniac in the mix that I knew would raise.

Regarding 2), I don't see any sense to this. A check-raise will get out the worse hands and keep in the hands that beat you. You'd be better of check-raising a nothing hand than a hand like this which has some value. If the guy is bluffing, you could call, and hope he bluffs again. I would usually bet the flop and fold to a raise. If called, I would check and see what he did on the turn. He seemed worried if you bet that someone could easily raise you off your hand. That's true, but so what? You OOP with a hand that's so-so.

Regarding 3), this makes some sense to me, although it's not something I've tried. If it gets checked to you, you can take a free card if you get something like an OESD, or bet it if it misses you or you make a pair. Is this a play anyone here rotinely makes?