Let's say the situation is in reverse.

You are in the cutoff with 44. UTG raises to $10 and 2 people call. I assume that stacks being big enough, you would still call, right?

But if it limps to you, you should just limp and play a small pot?

So it's preferable to play a small pot with this hand but playing a larger, multiway pot is still okay?

So what happens when you play other middling hands after several limps in a loose/passive game. JJ or KQs or even AJ, just limp with those as well? Put in a big raise to try to get heads up?

I think you are stretching the thread a little here ... You've already asked about 44 in the CO in a previous comment. IMO the key to being an above average live poker player is being able to read the situations and adjust your game accordingly. On top of that you need to also vary your approach to the 'same' situation from time to time just in case there are players who actually pay attention. When you are in the CO you have seen how most of the players are going to act in this hand.

1) Who raised and who called? What are their ranges? You can't just say that 'everyone' is loose passive.
2) How active have you been the last 2 orbits? Can you 3-bet/raise steal here PF often?
3) Will you get paid off if you hit?
4) Can you take down the pot on the Flop or Turn often?

If you are going to be aggressive/active with 44, then IMO you also need to play JJ/KQ/AJ in a similar manner in order to keep the table guessing. These types of hands are harder to play post-Flop since you 'should' be sharing cards with the other players in the hand. Be aware and pot control post-Flop/Turn if the action continues on the Flop with these 'passive' players.

I will mention 2 more things here ...

1) Typically speaking you want to be able to adapt your style 'opposite' of the players in the hand. When against loose-passive players you should lean towards an aggressive style of play, whether it be loose or tight. I don't think you want to be 'dominating' since you don't want to lose the predicable nature of the passive player and you still want your bets to be 'credible'. The last thing you want to do is rely on the deck to save you.

2) If you listen/watch Twitch.TV streams you might want to try and find a Matt Glantz table from Poker Night in America. He has a simple rule that you will probably hear on every one of his streams. "If you aren't betting or raising most of the time (as opposed to 'just' calling), you probably aren't a winning poker player." I've never really seen him play too much so I don't know if he follows his own rule but I think the key to success with 'his' rule is the ability to read the action as it presents itself to you and be willing to make some uncomfortable folds along the way.

3) From the late-stage tournament side of things I think this conversation changes drastically with 44/KQ/AT ... these are now easily mucked hands unless you can get in very cheap (limp), especially against an UTG raise. JJ is still a raising hand in most cases but I think you can flat IP against UTG in that case 'some' of the time to try and win a big pot.

I play in a 'reg' heavy environment so my comments are skewed in an effort to handle players that I have history with and most of who are capable players. If I got locked into playing a range of hands the same way 'all' the time then I am simply gambling and relying on the deck to do my work for me ... and I probably don't get paid off as often either. GL

Even against regs, isn't it dangerous to try to balance your ranges too much? Like when there are limpers before me I will be playing totally face up in the eyes of a good player since I take the highest EV line against fish, you could probably 3bet my raise polarized at a very high frequency and auto profit. If I would start to adjust for that and be more balanced I would lose value against the marks at the table that I am targeting. Also to profit at a rate that makes it worth while you need to take some exploitable lines and I don't think most live regs are capable of understanding the nuances in my ranges. Just how reggy is this game that you are prohibited from taking the maximum EV against the fish?

I would say that 90% of my opponents are 'regs' in the charity rooms I play in and about 50% or so in the casinos I play in. I wish I had 'marks' to work with more often but I don't get out much when fish are swimming ...

I don't want to misinterpret the word 'balance' either ... It's not 'equal' by any means, but being wide or polarizing is what allows me to adjust the post-Flop action accordingly. A large portion of my profit comes from taking down pots on the Flop and Turn when opponents are just too weak to continue. Yes, I can get exploited by opponents c/c their good hands then c/r on River but there is 'make up' when they are doing this with 2 pair and I have a set or connected in some other fashion. But as you know 1/2 players will protect their hands so they usually tell me their story by the Turn so I can determine if I can go for EV the rest of the hand.

This thread is overly stuffed at this point IMO. The correct, boring, response to this and many other threads applies ...

In poker .. It depends .. Don't get caught up doing exactly the same thing for 'this' hand unless you have good reason to do so. In a reg infested world I rely on applying 'equal' pressure and my ability to range the opponent in order to maximize EV from hand to hand but also laying groundwork for the future hands as well. I don't want to diminish anyone's effort to max EV in the current hand, but I (and maybe to a fault) am looking at keeping the target moving instead of just running them over with the train at the end of one hand.

Opponents have 2 choices ... Wait around for 'excellent' hands and hope I stay in the hand with them or enter my world and play wider which puts them into uncomfortable decisions come the Turn. GL

If UTG raised and there were two callers, I would call with 44 because it is probably profitable. If 3 people limp to me and I expect that a raise would get multiple callers, then I will limp because it is probably more profitable than raising.

I am not limping with the intention of playing a small pot. If I flop a 4, I am still going to try to play a big pot on most runouts. But if I don't flop a 4 (most of the time), I basically have no chance of winning and by limping I lost only $2 instead of whatever amount I would have raised to if I raised.

With JJ, KQs or AJ, I would raise even if I think I will get 2 or 3 callers (if people are calling a lot though I'd increase the raise size for value and to attempt to limit the number of callers). I don't have to check/fold those hands on as many flops as I do 44. Those hands will flop equity on a lot more flops than 44 will.

In the scenario described in the OP, limp behind. No point in bloating the pot with speculative hands against a bunch of ******s. K4o > 76s for example. With a decent one pair making hand go ahead and bump it up. But for marginal hands there is no point.