Why? Your post here makes no sense to me??? This is a guy (DanAbs) who is newer to poker & is super keen to learn how to get better.
I don't have a problem with his question. I have a problem with the refuse of responses, and the forum he posted it in. The advice floating around here is just extra-bad. And even guys like myself or TPC are just way too jaded to post anything useful. And on top of that, limping vs. raising is very very very basic preflop play and this question should be in learning poker. And the fact that half this thread can't really figure it out basically means all you posters should be in learning poker as well.
I open up a thread in here and usually think one (or more) of the following things to myself:
1) Dear god, there's so much bad advice here, there's no saving this thread. I could write for days and still be outnumbered by horrible advice.
2) The people who are posting the good advice are drowned out by the bad stuff.
3) The question that's being asked is a part of a player's game that you really shouldn't worry about. Even if the forum can give the poster the right answer, it won't improve their game much at all.
4) The thread really belongs in the learning poker section because the answers are so super duper fundamental and they apply to any type of poker (tournament, cash, strip poker, whatever).
So yeah. Sorry for the high-jack.
And in an attempt to be part of the solution:
You raise preflop for the following reasons:
1) Your hand, on average, is better than your opponent's, and will flop more hands & will flop better hands than they will. Start exploiting this edge as early as possible in the hand, which means raising preflop.
2) You raise preflop because winning the blinds is a good result for all but the strongest hands. Most hold'em hands have an
expected value of less than a big blind, so when you win 1.5 big blinds, you're getting an above average result.
3) Most hands will miss the flop most of the time. Raising preflop makes your range stronger, and thus most opponents will have to fold to your c-bet when they miss most of the time. Its called initiative, and its an awesome thing.
4) Raising limits the number of players in the pot. When there are many players in the pot, you're forced to play your hand in a straightforward manner.
5) Limping in preflop with speculative hands announces your hand's speculative nature to other players. They will either punish you for this (by raising preflop), or will limp along with hands that will play well against your speculative hand. When you limp in preflop with 22, and your opponent limps in with 45s, its going to be very difficult to get his stack, and he will usually be drawing to a hand that can outdraw the set you plan to flop.
6) Plus a million other reasons. Seriously, I could probably list a million and they're all good.
So yeah. Someone needs to make a sticky in this forum that just says "Stop limping, stop making threads about limping because limping sucks". We've covered it a million times, and avoiding limping except for a very select few scenarios is one of the most fundamental things every poker players learns. Learning poker probably already has a million threads on it already. And if someone doesn't understand basic preflop play, they should be reading the learning poker section anyways.