1/2 home game. Hero is a reg in this game, image is aggressive, can 3-bet, but losing today.

Too many villains to recount, but a reasonably tight V opens to $7 UTG. 5 callers.

H is in the big blind with $200 stack. Looks down at AsAd. Raises to $40.

My thought was that UTG raise is a pretty tight range, and I wanted to raise big to hopefully get called in just one or two spots and set up an easy SPR to stack off on turn.

Hero gets called in 4 (!) spots. 3 callers cover, one has about $50 behind. All callers are loose (obviously). Button caller and short stack are fish, other two callers are loose but not terrible players, show appropriate aggression and know how to range.

Flop comes out K97 rainbow. Hero is first to act. Pot is $200 and I have $160 behind.

My thoughts - Normally, with less than a pot-sized bet and an overpair, I think this is an instant stack off. However, not sure that's right in a 5-way pot. If I shove, obviously I'm never folding out a set, so need some worse hands that give me value. Think I can get value from a strong king, and maybe from JT. Other approach would be to check-call. Don't think I can ever fold.

stacking off is cool. Sorry you lost.

If you totally need to find a fold here. b/f 40$ and c/f if OTT or OTR if someone bets.

Raise a little bigger pre, around 55 should do it. Shove virtually any flop (except maybe 9TJccc/hhh, KKK, AAx)

Your raise pre-flop is incredibly small.

Normally, you'll want to raise 3x the opener + 1x per caller + 0-1x for being oop.

So we're talking 21 + 35 + 0-7. So around $60. $55 is also OK. $40 is way too small.

Don't fold now. I'd mostly just shove.

Agree $40 is small, but not terribly so.
Getting someone to put in 20% of effective stacks when we have Aces is almost always a good thing.

We can go bigger if we think that we are getting calls, but we don't want people to fold too often here.
I would have gone $45 - $50 here, but I'm still ok with the result.

As played, we can only force most villains to make a mistake on the flop or on the turn. And even then they won't be making a big mistake (or might not be making one at all) if anyone calls any bet in front of us.

I don't hate the idea of ck/shoving here, open shoving, bet $40/shove, or $70/$90 on the flop turn.

If we were a little bit deeper, I'd def prefer to go something like $80/$150 here to keep all sorts of band hands in their range.

In retrospect I should have gone $50 pre, which has the advantage of being an easy, round number. I think much bigger and I risk losing everyone.

That said, I agree with IRTM that $40 wasn't too bad. I'm hoping to get one, maybe two callers with an SPR that will allow me to easily bet flop, shove turn. However, I certainly didn't expect 4 callers, as the game usually isn't that loose on calling 3-bets, and $40 is a reasonable percentage of everyone's stack.

If you shove the flop, this hand is played absolutely perfect. You built a $200 preflop pot and have 4/5 pot left to shove. You will win that $200 some high percentage of the time when they all fold, win another $160 when they call with a losing hand, and sadly lose $160 when they flop a monster.

Sure, but when we 3bet pre and shove the flop for a pretty large bet we correctly get them to fold almost their entire range that we are ahead of.
That isn't what we want.

We want them to call (incorrectly) with hands that we are ahead of.
So shoving the flop and having them all fold a high % of the time (while profitable) doesn't mean that it is the most profitable line.

Pre is good.

Since the board is rainbow, I'd bet $80 and shove all turns.

First, thought I should add that while I got 4 callers, the original raiser folded. Think this is important in ranging the callers, in that all callers called twice and never made an aggressive action pre flop.

If I shove the flop, all hands that beat me are clearly calling. Those hands are KK (greatly discounted since no raise by them pre flop), 99, 77, K9 (maybe we can limit to K9s, on the theory that K9 is folding a lot pre), K7 (again, folds a lot pre) and 97. Of those hands, really only 99 and 77 make a lot of sense based on the action pre, but wouldn't be shocked to see someone flip over 97s either. I don't expect to bluff any of those hands out so if I shove flop it has to be for value.

So, what hands that I beat would call here? AK is almost certainly calling. Have to discount a bit for the failure to raise pre, but that's not so strange, and I also block two of the aces so only 6 combos left. KQ probably calls. Don't know how many worse Ks call, but some must, since if people are calling a $40 3-bet pre-flop, they'll have a hard time letting go of top pair. JT, especially JTs, is definitely in people's range pre-flop and will likely call with a double-gutter. Don't know what people do with QQ-TT, figure sometimes call, sometimes fold. Doubt I'm getting called by a 9 other than a short stack.

Think the real question is how many times I get KQ and KJ to call me. If I can get called by KQs, KQo and KJs, along with the 6 combos of AK, that gives me 21 combos I'm dominating, and 16 more combos of JT that I'm 2:1 against. Think I get called enough that I can shove for value,

Fish don't generally fold top pair to one bet. Shoving the flop here should be very profitable, or we would be bluff shoving this flop with QQ/AQ.

Even though the flop is dry, there is some danger if it checks through and and 8/T/J/Q comes.

I'd just shove. Seems like we're overthinking this.

Also, don't listen to anybody entertaining the idea that you can find a fold here.