So in my ongoing quest to try and figure why I'm not beating my current limit more than I currently am what do you guys generally consider good criteria for calling a PF raise? My main area for discussion currently as far as table position goes is from MP+1 or later (3 off the button) with a raise coming from MP or later with you to act. (Full Ring)

I'm finding when I get hands that are playable from a later position (I use SSH guidelines for tight games generally). Looking over my stats I find I'm generally not cold calling alot, and wondering if that is a good or bad thing.

I mean I understand generally it's not great to cold call alot of PF raises, but is it possible I can be leaving $ on the table by not loosening up a little? I'm focusing mostly on hands like AJ, AT, ATs, KQs, and KQ. If you pick up hands like this and a raise comes in immediately from your right, is it best to usually throw them away?

I generally tend to take the same approach and if it's from a tight player I won't.. but semi loose or loose aggressive players is what I've been considering this for.

Your criteria is way too general but even so, I'm more inclined to loosen up depending on who the pf raiser is and how he plays. The looser he is the looser I can afford to be but keeping in mind that weaker calling hands have to be played carefully and I prepared to let it go if the betting gets too aggressive.

For example, say our local maniac throws in a standard 3xbb raise (he'll usually just limp in) and I have A-Jo, I'd probably call or even sometimes re-raise hoping to get H2H with him. I'm hoping to outplay him postflop but if he makes it too expensive I have to be prepared to let it go - say if an Ace comes up but less so if a Jack comes up. In this senerio I'm actually more comfortable with the kicker pairing up than I am with the Ace but I also figure the maniac will aggressively pf raise with a mid pair like 88 or TT so will also play aggressively on the flop to establish each of our hands. He could just as easily have AA so establishing hand strenth on the flop is parimount. It depends but in almost all cases I'm looking for a good flop or will drop the hand if too much resistance is meet from my aggression.

Well my CC percentages are very low...was just a thought. Guess I'll just keep plugging away for now.

You are doing the right thing by not cold calling. In fact, I think it would not be much of a mistake to NEVER EVER cold call a preflop raise. I put that as one of my "golden rules" of limit poker in another thread.

There are some very specific circumstances to cold call, most of them require either a very tight table or a very loose raiser.

At a VERY tight table, I may cold call with AA KK. The reason is, is that everyone else at this VERY tight table will fold regardless whether I raise or not, and I can smooth call the flop and raise the turn against the raiser. If I three bet it preflop it will have given away my hand to some extent and he may fold an underpair or at least check to me on the flop and turn, losing some raise bets for me.

With a VERY loose raiser and loose table, I may cold call with a lot of mulitway hands like KQs or AQs or 88. Even if the other players are fish, they will usually notice that the raiser raises alot of hands and are more likely to play along and call as well. If you think you can get it 4 or 5 way coldcalled (which osn't hard since that is only one more and the two blinds) then you are essentially playing your regular game for double stakes. If you were to have three bet you blow all this loose money out preflop. Now don't take this range too far, I think A10o would be a poor choice for this - plays much better headsup against a loose raiser than multiway.

So essentially, I think whether you want to cold call in limit is dependent on the TABLE, not so much on a particular CARD ranking. But again, I don't think it would be much of a mistake to never cold call. I have coldcalled maybe 30 times in 20K hands.