9-handed 1/2 NL.

Hero: seat 1, utg, $200 stack.

Seats 2 and 6 are solid, competent TAG players. Rest of the table are loose-passive mouth-breathers. In the hour Hero has been at the table, there have been no 3-bets preflop.

Hero raises to $10 UTG with AA. Seats 3 and 4 call, seat 6 makes it $50, folded back around to hero (pot $83). All villains have hero covered.

Clearly a great spot to be in, but what play has the greatest expectation? Would you:
(A) flat and hope the mouth-breathers come along,
(B) min raise to give seat 6 enticing odds, then shove the flop, or
(C) push in for 4x seat 6's 3-bet?

If seat 6 is solid and knows that you are solid, he can be 3 betting wider than a standard 1-2 3b range of QQ+ and AKs, obviously.

However, I do not want to flat and allow 3 and 4 to both come along so we have to play our AA OOP vs 3 others including one competent who will have position on all.

If you raise to $90 it looks like you're dying for action here, then your $110 shove on the flop will be for 1/2 pot if you get only one caller.

I actually think a shove might look weakest to a thinking player here.

Make it 100 to go hope you get shoved on. Shove any flop.

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tank then shove

This

With only 200 behind anything other than a call or shove gives you an awful spr on the flop. Calling is the worst thing to do. That pretty much leaves shove, hope you get a call and hope they don't suck out on you

Weird spot because of stack size. anything more than a min raise leaves you with a lol amount to shove on flop. And any raise will surely send the limpers running, which I think is a good thing, because I don't want to play aces 4ways to the flop oop.

I would probably min raise, most people (I would think) would look at your stack size and realize they can't just call, they either need to shove or fold.

I don't want to flat and give the limpers a chance to call.

Just tank shove. You're not really deep enough to 4bet plus to a decent player a small 4bet actually looks more like AA than a shove. With a shove you can rep 99-JJ trying to end the hand and get called by TT-KK AK, AQ thinking you have a middle pair.

If you think villain is 3bet folding a lot to a shove, I'd flat all day. Otherwise shove. I think the higher +ev play is to flat and get the other villains to come along. Then shove any flop. You have the perfect stack size for it

If by aweful you mean awesome then yea.

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Normally I'm all for fast playing preflop but with these stack sizes I'm thinking differently. Reasons:

I like flatting vs. the good villain for deception. If we flat, he puts us on JJ,QQ,AK and we're more likely to get his stack on the flop one way or another.

This assumes that the competent TAG will be reading your hand. He's probably putting your UTG raise on TT+, AQ+.

Because of the callers, he might be squeezing, assuming we will fold the bottom half of that range. If he had a marginal-ish hand he will fold those to a shove. With these stack sizes we don't want that. We want to stack him when he has TT and the flop comes undercards. We aren't afraid of him setmining us because he has given himself the wrong odds. So if he's at the bottom of his range, I like a call here.

Or he might be strong. If KK, we are getting his money either way so it's irrelevant. But if he has QQ, we are more likely to get his money by calling and him putting us on TT, JJ. I think he folds AK to a shove here, but we get his stack on K high flops. So if he's at the top of his range, I like a call again.

I also don't care about the limpers. If they are likely to fold to the villain's 3-bet, they are irrelevant. If they are likely to call, they are putting in money as a huge underdog with the wrong implied odds. Once again, calling looks better. It's higher variance but looks like higher profit to me.

Also, there's a chance these folks will raise. The worst they can do is fold, followed by call, and the best they can do for us is raise. Let's give then the chance to spazz. It's a rare occurrence, but one that adds a few more points to the "call" choice.

I don't have a plan for the flop yet. Obviously we want stacks going in on almost all flops, but we'd need to know his postflop tendencies to find the best line.

Any raise commits your hand preflop and will look stronger than a shove to any thinking villain. I flat and crai postflop vs. 1 villain.

Just move in. Also when people tank for ages they nearly always have a monster. People don't take too long to bluff because they don't have a decision. Dont snap move in but don't take too long either.

I think shoving is ok, it looks more like a bluff or a drawing hand like AK. If you raise you are committing yourself which looks really strong. I am never flatting with 2 other callers in the hand. If this was heads up I could make a solid argument for flatting with an SPR of 1.5 which means we stack off on basically every flop by check raising flop.

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What's your image at the table?

I would say half the time I'd go for the min-raise click it back to $100,
and be flatting the other half....
I'm not really concerned going 4-way with AA and that stack-depth.

I think a flat here seems highest EV to me, give them the chance to come along and
shove the flop.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Yes, I think my stack size is what makes it an interesting question, because there just isn't a situation postflop where I'm not stacking off no matter how many players in the pot.

Equilab tells me I have about 61% equity 4 way (different assumptions about villains' ranges make little difference). But if I flat, there are a couple of problems:

Vs 1 and 2 aren't good players, but that doesn't mean they're going to routinely call a 3-bet behind after a call from UTG. If they both fold, I've passed up a chance to get V3 committed to the pot preflop (either with a shove or a min raise that all but obliges him to call a shove on the flop).

Then, suppose Vs 1 and 2 both call. An UTG raise and a flat call of a 3-bet that doesn't close the action basically announces to the table that I have a monster. I can't check most flops because there's a big risk it gets checked through, and my stack is only about 3/4 of the pot so if I'm going to bet I have to shove. There's a chance I'll be called by hands like TPGK, or straight/flush draws, but most of the time when I'm called I'll be behind and drawing to 2 outs. Might I therefore be better off trying to get the same amount into the pot, but be heads-up against V3?

Thirdly, if an ace flops, I'm pretty much never getting paid off by anyone.

Either raising or shoving is definitely the lower variance play, but flatting has its merits. I just don't know how to go about trying to evaluate which is more +EV.

This type of situation is an area of my game I'd really like to work on. I hate it when I win a big pot and still have a nagging feeling that I've leaked some value. Even superdonks can win with AA - I need to be winning the maximum!