1/2 game

4 limpers in the pot

Hero btn: AKo limps in
Sb: raise to 16
4 out of 4 limpers call

Hero jams for 94
Sb calls
Utg calls
Rest fold

I realize this spot with AK is a profitable spot to just raise with the limpers dead money, however small blind to the left of me was a ultra aggressive player and I'd figured he would raise to thin the field and decided to jam against his open

His raise was 16 every time he raised, I was not at the table for long before making this play but I figured he would be raising with playable but marginal hand a lot of the time OOP against so many players.

My mentality was if I raise and he flats it pretty much gives a fairly decent price for the limpers to tag along, but if he raised and the limpers called and I jam then it makes them have to invest about half their stack to call my all in.

Any input as to this being the incorrect mentality with AK? I would have made this play with my really strong hands and medium strength pocket pairs to isolate against the agro small blind or even hope to have him open being dominated and go heads up against him. Was I wrong in this approach?

This really comes down to how often SB is raising. If he's raising here more than 1/3 of the time or so, I really like your play. You often get a string of callers and get to trap a ton of dead money. Your button l/rr looks FOS too, so people will look you up light.

If he's raising a decent portion of the time, then this is fine.
He raises, lots of people call and we jam with a hand that is well ahead of his range.
Profit.

If he isn't raising often however, then this has to be a raise pre flop.

If SB is raising often enough then this is OK. Since you will win sometimes even if you limp and it will save you money when he doesn't raise, you miss the flop and just fold you don't even need SB to be raising half the time. Your stack is small enough that moving all in with some dead money is fine. The real risk in this situation is the chance that somebody else is limping in with a big hand. You will run into SB having an actual hand sometimes and since you only have AK it's high variance but it is +EV.

At some point your risking too much relative to what is in the pot. I would guess it's somewhere between $100 and $200 but I don't have the math in front of me and depends on how the table is playing.

Sb (villian) was seen raising to 16 on the button with Q9 diamonds heads up against Utg limp
Flop came all clubs 9 8 6
Utg bets small around 8 dollars
Villian raises to 29 Utg

Turn and river come A and 2
action gets checked around on both streets

He played about 10 hands while I was at the table he probably raised 5 of them to 16 each time no size difference due to limpers or pot size preflop.

Not a very large sample size but he was definitely raising light from the 2 or 3 showdowns he had when he raised

It seemed more like a move he made when he liked his hand when other people limped in.

I like your play.

No guarantees that we hit the flop but then there are no guarantees period in poker.

(Unless our screen name has really negative karma, SOME of that has to rub off <smile>)

Well played, especially if you saw him pre-loading a raise.

Obviously, raising to ~$15 is the standard play. But if some maniac wants to raise every hand, the old l/r is a great play with AK.

Would like to add that you should try to switch seats to get position on him once you start getting deep.

Nothing wrong with this play if villain plays as described.

Results

Sb calls
Utg calls
Rest fold

Flop runs out not in our favor
Sb shows AQo
Utg shows 55 and wins

What do you think about Utg call with 55? Seemed like a fairly negative EV play but pretty much have no math behind it just seemed like if I were in his shoes I'd never be able to call vs 2 players with a pair as low as 5s