Limping with low pocket pairs

A LOT of people have told me i should never limp in. Even when i show hand histories with hands like 55, 66, and even SCs, I am told that i should raise with it.

Why would i want to do this? There's a huge chance that I'm not going to hit my set, and after that I really wouldn't want to continue with the hand. At least if i limped in I could get away for cheap instead of losing extra

Hold'em is a game where no one usually has much of anything.

I agree with you Afchung, although bear in mind I've only been playing a couple of weeks.

I've often read that you should raise when playing for set value. I'm guessing the idea is isolation - but I don't understand why.

After the flop if they haven't hit you can just fold at hardly no cost, wheras if they have you can get some chips down.

Perhaps someone more experienced might tell us what the point is in raising with low/mid pairs before the flop?

Raise.

Think of the bigger picture and get back to me.....

Two reasons:

If you raise you drive out others playing with junk like the small and big blind. Therefore you can get a better read on the type of hands people will have.

Secondly, you have the potential to win a bigger pot when you do hit. This makes the play worth it in the long run. For example, you raise with 66 and flop comes down A63 rainbow. Anyone who called your raise with any A, even AK is probably going to bet at you hard and you have the potential for a huge pot. Imagine the same scenario if you were playing against the BB with 45 and the turn is a 2.

Exactly.

Think even bigger picture though.

Raising makes you really, really, really, really, really ridiculously big looking....

Think of the fact that by raising you isolate yourself and you're not going to get called by many people unless your table is loose, which means that you're probably playing against someone holding high cards like A-K, A-Q, A-J (there's the possibility that you're playing some donk and he called you with Q-J, K-Q, K-J aswell).

That means you have a made hand and if no high card hits the flop you can try (and most of the time succesfully) taking the pot right there (considering you didnt hit your set).