When to limp pre-flop in a shorthanded Hold Em game

[sweetjazz]

I was playing a shorthanded (5 player) home game of Hold 'Em the other night, and not counting the blinds I found that I almost never was limping pre-flop. The game was not too tight, with an average of about 3 to see a flop.

Now I know that it can be a mistake to limp too much pre-flop (either you're not folding hands all your bad hands or you're not raising all your good hands), but I came away wondering if I had taken this advice to the extreme. So I am wondering -- what kind of hands should one limp in with when not in the blinds in a shorthanded game? My list would be two high cards that don't include an ace or king (i.e QT, QJ, JT). My logic is that people usually defend raises with an ace or king, but sometimes will limp in with junk, so I limp with my QT for example, planning to bet aggressively if I flop top pair (assuming I'm not raised preflop after I limp) and bet at the pot if I catch second pair but being willing to lay down to a raise.

Is this the right way to play QT? What other hands do I want to limp with? When I'm on the button and have already gotten two limpers, do I always limp with a suited connectors (in my case, the blinds were not raising except in rare instances)?

Here's another example of a hand that came up and I wasn't sure how to play it preflop: I get dealt A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on the button. UTG calls, UTG+1 folds. I decided to raise to try to get it heads up with the limper. The SB folds, BB and UTG call my raise. I ended up spliting the pot with UTG who had A2 offsuit.

Was my pre-flop play correct on this hand? What about UTG? Should he have limped in with A2 offsuit, or was that a hand that he should either fold or raise with?