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In short handed play I've always let my opponents see the flops cheaply, even with raising material like A-10 on up. With stronger hands like J-J through A-A though I'm always confused as to what to do.
What I hate about not preflop raising is that I have nothing to get a read off of. If I limped with Q-Q and a King came on the flop I could judge a lot from preflop action. "Would he really hang on to a weak king after I bet (insert amount here)?" I am not a real body reader - I can tell when people are scared shitless or excited or when things are about to get real bad, but marginal situations like this I need a little more to make my decisions. When I don't preflop raise sometimes against weaker opposition I can tell when they hit it. With tougher opposition I get lost. "Well, he could have K-2 because he didn't have to call a raise, or he could have 4-9 off because I didn't give him a raise."
Also, if there's nothing but the blinds and antes in the pot and I hit the gas on the flop, whats to keep my opponent in there? He or she has virtually nothing invested. There's no money in there that has attachment to them, nothing that they had to decide to put in and now they are trying to convince themselves that THAT call preflop was the right decision.
In cash games I have always slowplayed in these situations with aggressive opponents that will do the betting for me (whether I raise or smooth call is another judgement call all together) or will try to bumrush me on the flop. When they have been timid opponents I have dragged them in with steadily increasing bets, as long as my hand still looks like the best and nothing like 4 to a suit, 4 to a straight, or a pair on the board has hit that I think my opponent might have gotten a piece of.
I can't say this strategy from experience for I have yet to play my first tournament, but what I plan to do is just put in a normal raise. Great tournament players look like they are always hunting for that big pot to put them in winning position. If you're an aggressive player and you've proven yourself loose in some pot by raising with some crap you got to show down (hopefully you hit too so your opponent got to see what crap you got lucky with and then they can pull a Hellmuth bitching hour) then they might overplay something like A-J or K-Q. When you reraise them they might fold, but still you took down a nice sized pot and made your opponent feel like he's still getting beaten around...that this is your game and you're going to destroy him before the night is out, and that he better hit the panic button before his last chip gets thrown out. If he does call you then you are probably a favorite to win, and you can't do much more than get your money in with the best hand. At worst its usually a coin flip, sometimes you're dominating (imagine A-K, A-A, K-K against your opponents overplayed A-J or K-Q mentioned earlier), and at best he is slaughtered (10-10, 9-9, etc.). If you have queens and the other guy has kings and you were shorthanded well then there wasn't a whole hell of a lot you could do.
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