In a full ring situation if you're up against just a few people you should go ahead and raise with most of these hands. The aggression may get them to fold even if you don't hit. Against many people, you need to raise with suited broadway cards, and even AKo in almost all situations. AQo and worse it depends on the players, etc. but that's when I start just checking. I don't think I'd ever raise out of the BB with 77-99 if 4+ people are in the pot.

Note: I wrote the above before realizing he was talking about short handed. Oops

Now, you're talking about shorthanded. Of course, you raise with more of these hands. Here's a decent starting hand chart:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showf ... part=&vc=1

While it's a crappy feeling raising you AQ or whatever getting all 4 other people calling and then missing your hand. Assuming you can play well post-flop, I think you have to look at it from an EV perspective, I don't know what the exact numbers are or anything, but against a field of 4 "random" hands or even 4 hands that 1/2 players would limp which is not likely to be much better than random, you're a decent long term favorite I would think. So in these shorthanded situation from the BB, I would probly go ahead and raise, then again, I suck at limit, so don't take any advice from me until Tiburon or somebody has replied and knows what they are talking about.

I can buy into just sticking in the raise preflop, but what about when you miss post flop?

You are stuck out of position with 3 more players that will call with any piece or almost any draw. Do you continuation bet and keep playing it aggressively or play it passively and check/fold?

Mac

I find myself in this spot too... Sometimes I have found that checking a hand like AKo, AQo in the BB after several limpers can be good, just because no one will put you on a hand that strong. But raising is probably best simply because you most likely have the best hand. Obviously you are not going to get anyone to fold, but it is only costing you 1 bet to get 3 or 4 more bets in the pot and it also gives you a better chance of getting a few people to respect your bets on the flop since you have shown aggression.

Maybe it's best to think of it as building up the pot for when you DO hit. The times you hit will probably make up for the times you raise and miss.

But you are out of position the whole hand, so I doubt it's a huge mistake to check these hands from the BB sometimes after several limpers. It also tells people that you don't necessarily have to raise a big hand.

Golden is right here... I play mosting at 5/10 and above and suffer from fancy plan syndrome sometimes. And like you said, none of these players are paying attention anyway. They aren't trying to put you on a hand.

So you do need to raise these hands. Just like you need to raise draws for value in big multiway pots. In the end you are making money for every bet you put into the pot.