Hero needs to not be an idiot who gives too much action when he flops top pair.

Grunch. Bad RIO hand from EP. Easy fold.

If you think AJ is easily dominated, then what about the hands with worse aces and worse jacks which many loose villains like to play? AJ dominates A2-AT, and also dominates hands like KJ-J8 and worse, which are hands that many villains play.

I think folding is worse than raising really big, raising really small and calling.

OK great so on a A22 flop you have the second best hand out of six people. All it takes is one person with AQ/AK and you're fcked.

Only if you play bad.

It's ok to bet with less than the nuts, even if we lose sometimes.

I think folding AJo pre-flop even in early position is slightly on the nitty side, I would open to $20-25 and ideally hope only 2-3 opponents call. If I miss the flop and get it to 2-3 villains, I would tighten my c-bet frequency noticeably and only c-bet on non-coordinated boards.

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If I were to raise a wider than 10% range from EP I would include hands like 22/98s before including AJo.

Result:

Hero opens for $20, 4 callers.

Flop 34Tcc

Hero checks, v bets $30 and everyone else calls, i fold.

How do we feel about hands like AJos or ATs or even A9s around the MP here when folded too vs UTG or UTG+1? And I mean this when talking about super loose tables where we want to be 5-6xing PF with 100+BB stacks?

well played

I don't think we really want to limp with static hands, meaning they either flop well or they don't, with little chance of improvement. In that case, if you spike the flop, you have to build a pot before you make any money, and you have to ask yourself, "what are these turkeys calling me with?" Better I think to limp in with a hand like 67s or Axs, which only has a 1% chance of flopping the nuts, but a 12-15% chance of flopping something attractive enough to make it worthwhile to build a pot, before closing in for the kill on a later street. If the plan is to shoot your wad OTF, better to raise pre I think. So, I can totally see the logic in limp/calling AJs pre, but not AJo

Remember that British Open, when Tiger Woods blocked his drive out to the right on a par 5, found himself way out on the rough with the ball resting on a stump. He pulled out a 3wood and hit a 230yd cut shot up onto the green. Which is the correct play, unless you aren't all that good with fairway woods.

Not trying to be rude, I respect your play a great deal, that was just a pretty big "but" eh

Playing against 5 players in that spot is really not that difficult. I don't see why you think it is.

Also, I'd raise bigger than the standard raise at the table so it's really unlikely I'd see 5 callers. If I limp with AJ and 6 people see the flop, I wouldn't lose much because I kept the pot small pf.

Finally, the OP didn't say the game was THAT loose (Why assume 6 players would see the flop when the game is consistently getting fewer players to see the flop?). I'd expect to see less than 3 callers much more often than I'd expect to see 5 callers if I raise pf.

From my experiences, when I raise AJ from EP I'm far more likely to get it heads up than get 5 callers.

The problem with raising big is it drives out all the hands we dominate. I'd rather make it 4x against stations who call with any ace/most jacks than make it 6x/7x and feel confident that the hands which call likely have me dominated.

Hero wasted 7% of his stack. It's always easier and more profitable to play in position than out. Choose better spots to get your money in. All 'bad' decisions post flop derive from hero's pre flop choice. You'll earn more money avoiding marginal hands OOP.

I think AJ is a pretty weak hand in early position:

We don't hit that many flops:
17% of the time the flop will be ace high.
10% of the time the flop with be jack high.

Almost 30% the of the time someone else will have JJ+, AJ+.

Compare that with the much stronger AK:
17% of the time the flop will be ace high.
15% of the time the flop with be king high.

And only 5% of the time someone else will have KK+,AK.

But at a loose table people are going to call more Ax preflop and call flop with worse than top pair. So yes we own ourselves sometimes but there's still a lot of value to be had. If you find yourself losing money raising AJ in EP at a loose table then you probably have bad postflop leaks, and folding a hand that should be profitable to raise is just avoiding the real problem.

I'm not trying to win a big pot when I limp with a hand like AJo. At a limpy, multi-way table, I'm usually trying to pick up several modest pots instead of finding spots to play for stacks.

At a loose table where V's are calling with a wide range pre I'm happily raising AJ for value. If you're getting called by dominated hands pre and still lose money over the long run then the problem lies within the postflop game.

In this hand with the Ac I'd consider cbetting depending on what our position is against everyone else and their preflop ranges and our image. Turn barrel would depend on what card it was and opponent's tendencies and flop calling range.

I don't think it's as likely as you think that they will have you dominated. Loose players will call with AK and AQ, but they will also call a $25 raise with AT, A9, suited or even lower unsuited aces, KJ, QJ, JT, maybe lower suited jacks, hands like KT and QT, connected cards like T9, 98, or even worse, or they will call worse because they are impatient or on tilt, and sometimes they even show up with garbage.

Too many players will look at a hand like A5o and think its a decent hand and worth playing. Those are the types of players we are dealing with.

And even if they have a tighter range, they will often fold to our cbet when we have the initiative after raising. We have a big advantage when they are reacting to us. I'm more worried about getting them to fold to my cbets than I am about making the best hand by the river. Even AK will often miss and is likely to fold before the river anyway.

Personally, I fold AJo-/KQo- from EP. I typically open limp the suited variety to look to play a nice multiway pot with a high SPR. If I had a preference other than folding, I would probably lean to open limping the offsuit variety too, simply looking to play small pots when OOP against the world.

One thing I've heard in defense of raising is that so long as we play good postflop we shouldn't have too much trouble. I just don't think it's that easy, especially at a loose table where a raise is going to create a small SPR, and especially at a table where some who have position on us might be creative. Checking/folding when whiffing is easy. Hitting TP ain't so easy.

For example, $300 effective, we raise in EP to $17 and get the 3 callers that we expect at a loose table. A96r flop. Pot is ~$65, we have $283 left, we're OOP, and have a small SPR of 4.3 (where it's actually not unreasonable to get in stacks in over just 2 streets, and will be trivially easy over 3 streets). Table is loose, so A2 is in our opponents range. Course, it's also a typical non-3betting table, so AK/AQ is to, as well as A9/A6 (which is crushing us on the flop). We have to be *extremely* good postflop (imo) to make the correct decisions here (i.e. not folding the best hand / not stacking off with the worse). This is why I would actually prefer a limp versus raising due to keeping the SPR skyhigh and thus never really putting ourselves in a situation where we can make a huge mistake.

GimoG