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Rather than continue the other thread, I decided to start a new one. This is going to be similar to my last post in the no limit thread.

I am going to play the Devil’s advocate here on both limping and raising with big hands in early position;
Say you decide that you are going to come in raising with pocket 10’s on up AK and AQ. This is balanced, 30 ways to have a pair and 32 ways to have AK and AQ. But you are still telling all your opponents, “look at me I have a big pair or a big ace.” Now when the flop comes all small cards, your opponents know that the best you can have is a pair and you are asking to get played off the best hand by aggressive opponents, or at least get put on really hard decisions.
In order to not be an open book, if you want to come in raising with these hands you have to cover it by raising with a mix of other hands so that you are not so easy to station. This involves getting money involved with hands while you are out of position. Isn’t the purpose to build big pots when you are in position and not build big pots when you are out of position?
The downside to limping is; you allow a lot of people to see the flop and they all act behind you, I don’t have to tell you how complicated this situation is, as I am sure you have already discovered it on your own.
The purpose here is to make you guys get out your “poker scales.” You have to be able to weigh the upsides and the downsides of each individual play based on position and the composition of the table. I will say this; there is nothing I am going to do 100% of the time, other than fold really bad hands.
I know you get scolded on message boards for limping with big pairs, but this advise is coming from intermediate players who haven’t discovered that each hand has to be fine tuned to the exact situation that exists. First you have to be aware of all your options, run every one of them through your mind, use a process of elimination and you will arrive at the correct conclusion.
You find yourself in the middle of a hand and your opponent has made a sizeable bet, you can call, fold, or raise. Run through all your options, I can’t fold, so it down to call or raise, I can’t call because of whatever reason, therefore it looks like I have to raise it!
The same reasoning with the AA and three maniacs behind me applies. Well, I ain’t folding, I haven’t played a hand in awhile and if I raise it will surely slow down the maniacs, looks like I am limping.
It really helps to assume that you are going to be in one of these situations in the next few hours and already have it all thought out so you know what to do when they come up. Naturally, the other thing that should have already occurred to you is, “my God, I have three maniacs parked right on my left and it is time to tell the dealer that I want the first seat change.”

So what hands to I need to add to my routine so that I am not an open book when I raise in early position? How do I keep my strategy balanced?

If I decide to limp in and nobody raises it, how am I going to proceed from there?

We are talking 9 handed cash ring games in this discussion, not tournaments.

LURKERS; Get your asses in here and start contributing, the more people that are coming up with ideas, the more everybody gains. If you told me ten things that I didn't know and I told you one thing that you didn't know, you are still ahead.

As someone said on another thread, UTG is the new steal and players often give this position a lot of respect. Aside from the obvious power hands one typically would open from this spot, I've been experimenting w/ suited gappers.

I like them a lot actually. 86, 75 (not so much 97 as any straight i may draw to could easily be dominated by those calling from position)... My results have been pretty good so far too. I am able to effectively make continuation bluffs if an A hits, can get away cheaply if the flop is particularly ominous, but I think the best part is my gappers are sneaky! If rags flop, its difficult to put me on 75 and i've either flopped a pair or 2, or i'm unsuspectingly drawing.

Like everything, I open enough w/ big cards from the same position too...typically earlier on as opposed to shorthanded, and I make sure i go to showdown w/ these big hands before i employ my suited gappers. I want the table to know I respect the UTG open and only play premium hands from that position.

Just a fun little wrinkle to consider the next time you're deep enough to be creative.

**NOTE** I am primarily a $10-30 SnG/MTT player with my cash game volumes trailing far behind. The last couple weeks, however, I've been playing more cash and have used the aforementioned technique.

Husky Blue, good answer. You didn't address how you are going to balance your strategy?

So what hands to I need to add to my routine so that I am not an open book when I raise in early position?

Off kilter hands. Maybe some suited Aces. Smaller PP's, KQs. I don't want to get to out of line, I really don't mind some respect from EP as I am already putting myself in a position to be out of position for the rest of the hand. I think opening up too much from early position can cause headaches. I understand we are discusssing playing UTG, but I like to do as much of my buisness as possible at the table from late position.

How do I keep my strategy balanced?

I have used strange things to balance my strategy on limping UTG over the years. I mean really strange. I have gone so far as to limp UTG whenever the seconds hand on my watch is in the last 10 seconds of a minute and play straight the rest of the time. In reality the biggest determining factor should be other opponents. if there are maniacs behind me, I can trap more. If there are tight players behind me who like to limp, I need to throw a wrench in their gameplan and raise.

If I decide to limp in and nobody raises it, how am I going to proceed from there?

A great big "It depends." It depends on the flop, who called, how many people called etc... Most likeley betting just about any flop. Once again, it depends.

We are talking 9 handed cash ring games in this discussion, not tournaments.

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As in the previous thread, it all pertains to these central themes. Mainly, you can't do the one thing 100% of the time.

Obviously, in deep stack games, in order to remain reasonably 'unreadable' you obviously have to limp UTG with speculative hands and big hands ... as well as raise UTG with big hands and speculative (even trashy) hands. I use various methods to randomise the frequency in which I raise UTG. I don't use the method of raising with a 'subset' (eg, suited gapers) but raise any 2. When limping UTG, I actually tend to use the 'subset' method, mainly suited gapers.

In regards to post-flop play, it is pretty much totally dependant. Leading, check-raising, check-calling, and check-folding are obviosly all options. I don't really randomise the way I play post-flop, but just play according to the players remaining in the pot ...

I hate it when i get big hands in 1st position, tend to either raise and no callers or limp and run into a bb special.

Guess depends on the table if passive always raise - better to win a small pot than lose a big one, even if aggressive sometimes raise and sometimes limp

If the game is aggressive there is no chance I am raising, I am always limping. If the pot becomes a multi-limp situation, proceed with extreme caution. It isn't mandatory to GO OFF with an overpair in a limped pot.