First in middle position limp?

[pete shaw]

I have seen several people start there responses to hand post with - "I hate this limp." It seems to be centered around hands like KTs in middle position, first in. I have to admit I still have a four wheeled huffy, so I'm still going by the charts. What's the logic? What's the math behind a raise here? If you don't come in for a raise, is a fold better than a limp.

Thanks [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[MrWookie47]

If it's folded to you in MP, then you almost always want to bring it in for a raise if you want to play. You stand a good chance of stealing the blinds, and there are fewer people around who'll have better hands than you. You're going to have poor position for the hand, so you'd like to either end it now, or get it between just you and the blinds. If the table is ridiculously loose, however, and you don't stand a chance of folding anyone, you can make an argument for open-limping with some hands (low PP's, for example).

[milesdyson]

i'll throw out one aspect of it:

raising preflop increases your postflop fold equity (look this up if you don't know what it is), and since you will often have the disadvantage of being out of position postflop, fold equity is good.

[Fantam]

You have chosen a good hand to ask whether to fold, limp or raise, first in from middle position.

Looking at KTs, this hand has moderate high card strength, a little connectedness and is suited.

This means that the hand should be worth a call in a multiway pot, when the combined flush and straight draw possibilities help to compensate for the only moderate high card strenght.

Heads up, the high card strength of this hand becomes much better and more likely to hold up if your hand pairs on the flop.

Therefore the reason to raise first in from middle position would be to hopefully either steal the blinds or play the hand heads up against perhaps just the big blind.

The argument for limping would be if the table was loose and you considered it likely that there would be loose callers (and the blinds) in the hand if you didnt raise.

The argument for folding would be if you considered the table to be tight and tough, but that your raise would be unlikely to steal the blinds. Then you could find yourself playing your hand heads up against a tough opponent out of position.

So I think table texture, and your view of your opponents playing tendencies would help to determine your preflop decision.