In general...

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I think it would be very easy to limp/call PF and just fold post flop if you don't hit the flop absurdly hard, and check/raise whenever you do. Why just fold?

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Better players please correct me if I'm wrong but here it goes: (this is more for my benefit than anyone else's - I'm figuring out the answer to this as I type)

When you're in early position and you play mediocre hands (say 3 coordinated and a rag or big pair plus two rags) you can only hit a flop so well. Many of your best draws will be to about 13 outs or less and you'll be out of position. This will make it tempting to call pot sized bets which you don't actually have odds to call if your opponent has blockers/kill cards. If your pair becomes top set it will be vulnerable because you won't have redraws or blockers.

Furthermore, with mediocre hands it's next to impossible to have your opponent(s) crushed and so you need better cards to compensate for your lack of position.

Playing mediocre hands out of position leads to smaller pots when you're the favourite and bigger pots when you're the underdog. This is because it's much easier for you to control pot size in late position. I believe this is the essence of the problem, and it is more true of pot limit than FL and NL because it's only in pot limit that leading out gives your LP opponent more ammunition to fire back at you. OOP, your only significant weapon is the check-raise. But his means you have to offer your opponent a free card before you can make him pay for his draw. When you're in position you never have to face this dilemma.

Everything in the above pragraph is obvious on its own I think, but the full ramifications of the interplay between weaker cards, no pot control, plus the LP information advantage adds up to the biggest potential leak in any player's PLO game.

I learned this the hard way when I tried to apply agressive OOP moves that worked at the $25 and donkey $50 tables to $100 and tough $50 tables. I didn't appreciate it at the time that I was opening myself up to exagerate plays that looked to be small +EV but were in fact -EV.

The key here is that what your opponent is holding can easily make your pot odds estimate off by 5%. This is ok when you think you have 15 or more outs because you'll still have odds to call no matter what your opponent is holding. The nature of PL protects you here - he can't price you out. If you think you have 13 outs though, this 5% makes the difference between +EV and -EV (Note: it's much easier to have 15 outs with 4 co-ordinated cards, it's next to impossible with 3). Since he has pot control he can increase the stakes when it's -EV and decrease them when it's +EV. This leads to you losing more big pots and winning more small ones.

If you can get away with mediocre hands OOP in your game it probably says a lot about the poor quality of your opponents. I know that I can get away with playing such hands in early position on the lower limits but that's only because so many people there play more than 50% of their hands (i.e. my mediocre hands are usually better than theirs) and they don't know how to use position (not to say that I do, but I'm getting better).

OK, that's all. I hope it makes sense to someone other than me.

well put

[Unabridged]

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...could someone discuss the merits/faults of a strategy that includes not playing, preflop, any hand whatsoever in the first 3 positions (not including SB and BB)?

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i think you are losing money if you are folding big pairs in EP. top set plays well from oop when you don't raise preflop and no one suspects you have anything

I would also like to point out that in TJ Cloutier/Tom McEvoy's Omaha they state "In PLO, position isn't as important as starting hand selection."

They go over what appears to be a very tight starting hand selection, something that I know is debated here on this forum.