In almost all situations you are faced with pre-flop, the only two options you should be considering are should you raise, or should you fold? If your hand is not good enough to raise with, then it probably is not worth playing at all.
Raising will allow you to control the hand in play and it will eliminate loose limpers to the flop. Raising is a sign of strength and it will give you information on your opponents hands e.g. their hand is good enough to call a raise with, or their hand is no good and they fold.
A good aggressive raise with premium cards would be 3xBB plus 1 BB for every limper in front of you. So if blinds are at $25/$50 and there are 2 limpers in front of you (the SB and BB do not count), your raise would be 3x$50 + $50 + $50 = $250 total. This puts a serious question to the limpers who will elect to fold most of the time.
Smooth calling is almost always the worst move to make pre-flop. You do not gain any information about your opponent’s hands and you are entering the pot weak.
If you call pre-flop, only for the pot to be raised by a late position player, then an even worse play to make is to smooth call that raise. Ask yourself this: If you are prepared to spend 4xBB to see a flop with your hole cards, then why not raise it to 4xBB when the action first comes to you? Being first aggressor is crucial in a game of no limit poker.
There are few situations where it is correct to simply call pre-flop, maybe I will discuss these at a later date, but if you want to improve your game and your table image, then nearly every time you play you should be either folding or raising pre-flop.
