Poker professional Chris Ferguson said in an interview once that if your hand is not good enough for a preflop raise you should fold it.  He said he shakes his head when he see's so many player's limp into pots preflop.

It's hard to argue his logic when it is backed up by the success he has had !

I'm kind of on the fence with this issue.  In the early stages of a tournament I will limp into several pots with hands that have big flop potential.  Hands like Ax suited, pairs and gap cards.  If you hit the flop with these hands you can usually extract a lot of chips from your opponent if he has caught any piece of it.

I'm a big believer in keeping my fold equity as high as possible and that means good chip stack management.  I'm usually playing these hands from the button or cutoff but if the sb or bb put in a raise I'm usually folding there by maintaining my fold equity by not losing more chips because the risk has just increased.

I believe you are not risking more chips by not putting in a raise with these types of hands because if the button or blinds reraise, your losing more chips when you fold.  If they just call you can check or fold a flop of bricks.

Now, you may argue you would not be risking any chips if you just fold and play only premium hands.  True enough but what if those types of hands (AA, KK, QQ, AK) are not coming your way ?  What if you are card dead ?  As Doyle Brunson says, "when you can't get in the front door, try the window."

I like just calling in these instances.

As the game progresses my attitude slowly shifts toward the raising side of this issue.  I think as the game goes on and into the middle and late stages I am not playing the types of hands mentioned above as much but if I am, I'm playing them with a raise to try and steal a blind or 2.

Remember I am always playing these hands in position, either from the cutoff or the button and everyone else has folded to me.  Under those circumstances I would put in a raise.

Of course in the later stages of a game the gap concept comes into play so when your putting in a raise someone who's calling usually has a pretty good hand.  The maniac's and weak players are usually gone by this point so chances are his hand is pretty good.

At this point in the tournament raising is a pretty good sign of strength and should be given the proper consideration.  Many times I have been in a 4 way battle (top 3 get paid) that goes on for a long time with one person raising and everyone folding.  At this stage your raising/pushing or folding.  It's a real battle at this point and your focus has to be sharp because you need to be stealing your share of the chips to maintain or increase your stack.  You don't want to be blinded out or forced to push with terrible cards.

I think whether you raise or call depends on what stage of the tournament you are in.  There are arguments for doing both but I think you really have to be concerned with your stack size and fold equity.  If you look at it along those lines you will make a good decision more often than not.