Raising middle pairs

[iceman5]

There is an active 10/20NL thread where the poster raised 66 preflop. Ive seen many other posts where someone raised 44 or 88 or whatever.

Im wondering what the purpose of this is. It seems like a -EV play to me.

You may steal the blinds and maybe some limpers money, but if you get called, you have to make a continuation bet every time and obviously youre going to have multiple overcards. True, you will take the pot down on the flop alot of times, but when you dont its going to be an expensive proposition and its very rare that you will get passed the flop and still win.

For me, my biggest pots are hands where I hit a set and someone cant fold their top pair or 2 pair. If I raise 88 and the flop comes K84, most people with KQ, KJ already folded to my raise so I dont think you can win many big pots this way.

The only benefit I see to raising these pairs is to give some cover for when you raise your real hands, but isnt it a high price to pay just to get more action on your big pairs?