Sunday night at Aria, just before midnight. Table is 8 handed, action has been fairly loose.

Villain in this hand is a white guy in his fifties. VPIP/PFR of roughly 45/5 over 100 hands. In my first hand with him I raised A9o in LP, he called from BB with QTo, flop came Q75r. He checked, I c-bet, he called. Turn and river go check/check and he won. In the second hand I raised to $17 from BB with AQ, he called from MP with A8o, flop came T85. I c-bet $25, he called. Turn and river went check/check and he won. A couple times he has donked into the preflop raiser in a 3way pot with what I assume to be top pair hands. After seeing his high calling frequency I've bet against him strictly for value and won a couple pots. He has recently rebought and starts the hand with $107.

On to the hand:

MP calls. Villain calls in HJ. Hero raises to $17 with A A in CO. BTN folds. SB initially calls the big blind before realizing that hero has raised, then calls the raise. BB calls, MP calls, villain calls. $81 in pot after drop.

Flop comes T 8 7. Checks to villain who shoves for $90. Hero ???

This is barely more than a pot sized bet. Due to villain's ability to shove a short stack with Tx hands I think folding is out of the question. The thing I wondered about was whether a raise might have any merit. It doesn't allow me to get called by worse made hands, but if I just call I would allow the next villain to get 3 to 1 on his call. If I call and another villain calls behind is my plan to bet 1/2 pot on any blank turn and proceed cautiously when any scare card falls? How confident should I be that these Vs will play very straightforwardly in the side pot? Other three stacks were all roughly $200 to start.

I'm probably shoving there

Shove flop if everyone has $200

There are a lot of pocket pairs in their range. And a lot of them all smashed this flop, so I sort of hate this flop.

But having said that, I think it's really unlikely that anyone is going to make a play at you here given that you raised so big pre, and that you are calling the shove. You might get calls behind from a range of weaker hands, but they will all have some decent equity against you. Once you do get a call however, you realize that while there will be a dry side pot, there will be $350 in the pot, and no one will have more than $100 left behind? So, there is no bet half pot and eval, or check and eval. It's all in or fold essentially.

If you are comfortable folding when the 50 bad turn cards come any 9, any T, any , any J, any 6, any 7 but I really think that there's just too much we hate on the turn, and too much that we can get bluffed off with. So, I think your only two options given the stack sizes are to raise and commit or to fold.

I pretty much hate folding here given her SS nature, as we are almost certainly ahead, or getting the right price over her jamming range, so essentially I think we need to click it to $180 and just not fold.
It is high variance, no questions asked. But it's better than any of the alternative.

yeah like others said, shove flop. I don't think V is every doing this with a made hand. I think more often it's a combo draw or maybe JJ.

gross flop, but an easy call

if everyone is short then shive

but if youre 700 deep and so are others then just call

Due to effective stack sizes we cannot flat call here.

This flop smashes V's calling ranges, Sets, TwoPair combos, Flopped Straights, Pair+OESDs, Flush draws, Gutshots+FDs, Pair+Gutshots you get the idea.

Against these ranges we are probably 50% or so.

If we are never folding, we are never flatting, Shove.

Seems everyone is in agreement about a raise to roughly $200. This was my initial thought in game. Only real counterargument I saw was that if one of the three other players had been planning to check/raise a set or straight I would be getting roughly 65bb in drawing nearly dead. Can I just: a) assume sets and straights would have to lead in a 5 way pot to protect against the flush, and b) call it a cooler given the circumstances?

Also, I've heard more than a few posters in these forums tell me that raising to charge draws/protect equity can often be poor thinking. How does that critique apply in this particular situation?

Who the fsck to you that you raising to charge draws is a bad idea?

Isn't that pretty much the essence of poker? When they are on a draw they will put more money into the pot. And they will have the minority of equity.
So, they are putting in money when they are losing. Sounds like the idea situation to me.

As far as raising here: There are literally 20-25 bad turn cards for us. Over half the deck. So we can't really plan to call and gii on the turn. There is only $100 more to gii on the turn with. And the main pot will be over $350. So, we're really planning to call here, and then just fold when someone jams $95 into the pot getting 4.7:1? We are essentially gambling that where will be a 'safe' turn card. When in reality, if we are worried about people having the straight/set already, then no turn card is safe.

So, we are giving someone a great price to catch up to us by just flatting. We are going to lose to a flopped set/straight no matter what we do unless we just fold now. (Which seems like a pretty bad idea.)

Rank these options in your head and tell me what you think we should do (I'm not being snarky, just being straight forward)

1) Fold now with AA on this board, and don't put any more money into the pot.
2) Shove now, and lose to sets/straights, but charge all of the draws out there max cost, and get max value from them (keep in mind they are still getting almost 2:1 on a call, their price isn't that bad even if we make it $180)
3) Call, but fold on any straightening card, and flush card, and board pairing card 4x Jacks, 3x Tens, 4x Nines, 3x Eights, 3x Sevens, 4x Sixes, 7x s
4) Call, but shove on every turn card including all the ones we hate (all 24 of them) but also shove the good ones still giving our V's the correct price to all to get there for many of their draws, but we are still paying off the flopped sets/straight just like were before, but now our equity is cut in half.
5) Call but only shove the safe turn cards, which is less than half the deck at this point.

Why is folding such a bad idea? We have only $17 invested in this pot so far and we have someone donking into us, why are we only giving him credit for Tx? I think you can range him as all sets and 2pr combos, the straight, and then the Tx hands that mostly include a straight draw, T9/JT. Stove it against that range and see how we are doing. Even making it $200 here doesn't really price out a strong combo draw, say someone has A[heart]9[heart], they aren't folding no matter what we do, and if we proceed 3 ways in this pot I just don't like our chances. But then... I'm a nit lol.

Results:

Hero raises to $190. Other three villains fold. $261 in main pot.

Villain shows T 9.

Turn: T 8 7 A.

River: T 8 7 A 3.

Hero bids V1 good night as V1 leaves the table.

Looks like a shove or fold spot to me. Calling seems out of the question since we'll only be left with 1/4 PSB left on the turn if someone else calls (plus we'll hate a bunch of cards). Everyone is fairly short (66bbs effective stacks) so I think I'm cool with just stacking off here and if someone has me beat after putting in 9%+ of their stack preflop, oh well. We can still easily get called by lots of worse hands.

GshovingG