Late position opening

[erdnase]

Hi guys.. any comments on this would be appreciated

I'm looking for thoughts on how late position preflop opening is affected by the number of players who have limped thus far. The way I understand the "received wisdom" on the matter, is that if you`re first to limp in, you should open for a raise. Obviously everyone has different ways of doing this, but does a hand like 66, A9s or KJ - where I`d limp in late position normally if there were callers upstream - should now be a raising hand in the last 4 seats? What about being 3 or 4 to the right of the button with 67s, and its folded round to you?

Also, everyone hates AJ, but how are you guys playing it? I think I'm being maybe a little over tight playing it, never raising in early position with it, very rarely raising in late position, and not calling a raise with it. Comments?

Thanks in advance!

[Jav]

I will tend to open-raise from late position with hands like A9s, KJ, and other high cards or good "limit" hands. I tend to limp more with small pocket pairs. The big cards can't stand a legitimate re-raise, while the pocket pairs can. But if you raise with the pocket pairs, then a legitimate re-raise can sometimes put the raise amount to a bigger percentage of my or my opponents stack (killing the implied odds). Then it's a harder call. If the stacks are deep enough then I might start raising the small pairs more often.

The important thing is that if you are always open-raising when you enter a pot from LP, then make sure you do it when you have an actual hand as well.

You can sometimes raise with small suited connectors, but I will usually only add these hands on particular tight tables, where I have a very good chance to pick up the blinds.

As far as AJ you're probably playing it pretty well. I think tight is right with a hand like this, and I won't call a raise with this hand unless there are very specific stack size reasons for it, and I know I can get it heads up.

[Bob314]

I won't call a raise with A-J unless I'm defending against a player who frequently raises whenever it looks like he can pick up the blinds or someone who is blatantly button raising (min raise on the button). I won't play in in EP and I frequently won't play it in mid position either. I'll complete the SB with it but I won't limp otherwise.

Whenever I am going to raise with a marginal hand (like A-J) in late position I'll still raise. I think it adds legitimacy to your hands in the eyes of the other players when you raise despite one person limping (making a LP raise on the button after it folds to you is very obvious). Once you get up to 2 or more limpers I don't like raising much anymore.

[TheUnknownPlayer]