1/3, 9-handed, Saturday afternoon.

Villain A (UTG, 75yo white male, $800, LP 70/2 fish) limps.
Villain B (UTG+1, 65yo white male, $240, LP 85/2 fish) limps.
Hero (MP, $300) raises to $19 with As Ah
Villain C (BU, 25yo Arab male, $120, new) calls.
Villain D (BB, 25yo Arab male, $150, new) calls.
Villain A and Villain B both call.

Flop ($96): 6s 3d 2h

Villain A and Villain B check
Hero bets $55
Villain C, Villain D and Villain A fold
Villain B min-raises to $110

It's $55 to call into a pot of $261, and VillainB has $111 left

What do you do?

Lets start with basics. Why are you raising to $19. Do you know how long that takes for the dealer to make change for every caller? The more people who do that the less hands per hour you get dealt. Just make it $20 for Petes sake.

Next, dont just make it $20 after 2 limpers. My minimum would be $25 in a 1/3 game. The lower the stakes the more BBs you can raise preflop. I open to $15 all the time playing 1/2. Playing 1/3 and after 2 limpers, $19 is not enough. This is a big reason why you are losing with your premium pocket pairs.

Thirdly, without any other read than villain limped in EP and hes a 65 year old guy who plays 85% of his hands.....I fold this. Hes going to have 2 pair, a set or 45 too often for me to continue with this action. If hes a maniac post flop or you've seen him in lots of big pots that's a different story, but as is....I fold.

I'd probably lean towards raising more preflop to have a better chance at thinning the field. If we don't thin the field, we sorta end up in difficult postflop spots where we're grasping at straws for stacks, such as we did here. We offered 4 opponents 16+ IO (no horrendous) and also created an SPR of ~2 (where it is unlikely we'll be able to fold); if we're going to setup a situation where it's unlikely we're going to be able to fold postflop, then we should attempt to offer worse IO, imo.

This guy doesn't raise at all preflop right? Which means he could easily have KK-? Given the SPR I just don't think we can fold, and if he's hit his set then we're just going to have to pay him off (and this is why I like offering poorer IO preflop). So I most likely continue. The board isn't very drawy, and I don't think either of us is that scared of a 5/4. So I'd probably just flat to keep in overpairs that might get away from a shove (and obviously get the rest in on the turn).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think we need a bit more of a read on our villan here before we can give proper advice.....does he fold his limps to a raise? What is he like post flop? Give is something other than made up stats so we can analyse.....
Readless against the majority of players you probably have to put the money in the middle....but honestly if you have sat down for more than half an hour with this guy you should know what to do here,
It looks like the nuts, it smells like the nuts, the nuts makes sense.....it's really probably the nuts....
In the games I play you can snap fold this against certain villans, and lol shove against others.... You need to give us info, but I'm guessing he had 45

You're up against 2p+.

Without more info, a 65-year-old loose passive who limp/called pre and min-raised the flop has AA beat here. However, you gave us no information about you. How does he see you?

If there is any chance he does this with an over pair, just jam, but there is no shame in folding (as long as you don't show).

Got to agree with Mike in this situation, don't ever bet $19 unless you want every ruling to go against you the rest of your life. An auxiliary reason is that it marks you as a "serious" player. The fish don't make odd bets. You'll just get more people paying attention to you. That's never a good thing in poker.

The min raise has two possible meanings. The first is that you're beat. The second is that he has you on AK and thinks you'll fold. Without a specific read, a 65 year old white male is never going to be semi-bluffing in this situation enough to be worth the call. Fold and for God's sake, don't show your cards. If the dealer even hints that he's going to look at your cards, tell him you'll call the floor and have him written up if he does it.

Most of the table would have no idea about the pecking order of the table, and certainly this villain plays his cards only without thinking about anything approaching ranges.

I find that raising to a non-multiple of five actually thins out the field more, at low stakes people have a chance of not being bothered to call an odd amount. On the other hand a raise to $20 is likely to elicit even more callers. The same goes with betting a non multiple of five on later streets.

In this specific hand, with a SPR of 2 before he raised and getting 5:1 odds, I called.

The turn was a nine, with no flush draws. He shoved his last $111 and I called (we were both pot committed).

He shows pocket sixes for a set of sixes.

Do you think somebody after you thought, "Gee, I'd call 20 but I'm not going to call $19?" You got 4 calls this time. How did that work out for you?

Strange OP made the post, nobody liked his open sizing (he had a reason, somehow ppl rather call 20 than 19) then said he called the min raise vs OMC and called the turn shove bc they're both committed. Why the thread?

You clearly dont know when you're beaten, Sir. Youre reasons for continuing with this hand are really bad. SPR of 2 before he raised? You were getting 5:1? You were pot committed?

No. He gave you those odds with the most transparent min raise in the history of poker. And you werent pot committed on the turn. Did you think an old passive white dude min raised the flop and shoved the turn with A6? 99? Thats not how they play those hands.

If you call the flop, it's a peel to fold the turn. As it stood, you were multiway and got min checkraised. It's unlikely one pair is good even on the flop and you don't have enough to expect to improve on the turn. Does anyone see a call on a paired turn 3/2? I don't think it changes much, so I agree with all the flop folds.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Yes, some mid 60's males play A6 and 22-1010 this way. Some also like to fold and show the A6 that they limp/called pf with after getting shoved on to show how good they are. Hence the min raise versus a larger raise. Without more of a read I would have shoved the flop.

Good luck with that strategy.

Unlike others, I don't mind the postflop play. It's definitely not fistpumpy by any means, and things could change the more hours we have with the villain. It's a difficult spot, imo.

But the reason it is a difficult spot is due to your preflop result. If you continually get yourself in 5way pots with TP hands with low SPRs, you're just going to have one difficult decision after another. Unless you are expert, you are better off getting yourself in easier- to-play spots, which means thinning the field by raising way more, or limp/reraising to end the hand preflop / setting up a super trivial postflop spot.

GgoodluckG

That makes your sizing worse. AA doesn't need or want to thin the field preflop. That's not why we raise. If you're getting fewer callers for a smaller sizing your just missing a lot of value.

Old guys love limping in EP with small pockets with the exact reasoning that villain had.... I limp hopefully MP raises and a bunch of callers give me huge odds to spike a set and stack...

Raise more aggressively against this villain when he limps from EP... I get it you don't want to have villain fold when you got the AA, but he literally wants you to have AA here when villain has 66

Villain doesn't care if you go to 20 and gives him odds to call and stack.

Go 27-35 depending if its 1/2 or 1/3 pre since there was two limpers ahead of you

Queue everyone screaming "I DONT WANT VILLAIN TO FOLD WHEN I HAVE AA"... Gotta realize, villain WANTS you to have AA

The less % of stacks OP is getting in, and the less comfortable OP feels playing against a large field postflop, the more a raise is looking to thin the field, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

You unlock this game with a set of key skills, beyond that it's another rigged dimension that you’ve got to master.

Of course you want to thin the field.....I'm always advocating +eV spots etc, and yes more callers is more+eV pre-flop with AA, but come on, who wants to play the super high varience way were we have to fold aa 50% of the time because if we take aa 5way to the flop we are generally well lower than 50%..... Ideally you want to take aa post flop Hu.....

Make it $21 pre-flop. Dealer and players will hate you more since it takes longer for the dealer to make change of 4 chips than 1 chip. He may even have to call for a fill in the middle of the hand and really bog things down. This will get you more loose action as the table will all trying to stack you now.
Seriously always be wary when a passive player suddenly takes an aggressive action. They have one pair beat.