No bad beat stories here, I am just interested to see how some the posters here would size their 3bet in the following hands. Both of these happened during my last trip to the Gold Strike in Tunica.

Scenario 1: 1/2 NL

Villain 1 (UTG +2): stack of $400+, LAG and is opening 50% of all pots. I am the only player to 3 bet him in the past 2 hours, and took down both pots on the flop.

Villains 2-3-4 (MP-Button): all with stacks between $100-$150. No real reads, all seem pretty tight post flop.

Hero (BB): $350. I think my image is tight aggressive. I have 3 bet a few times, and have been betting when in pots.

Villain 1 opens for $15, which seems to be his standard opening raise. I have seen him do this from early position with low suited connectors and up.

Villains 2, 3, and 4 all call.

Hero has A A in the BB. $15 to me, $60 in the pot.
Obviously, I am raising. How much?

Scenario 2:
This is about an hour later. Roughly same cast of villains.

Villain 1 ($375) is UTG and again opens for $15. Villains 2,3,4 and now 5 call (all with stacks from $100-200, I would now classify all as weak-tight).

Hero ($425+) finds AA on the button. $15 to me, pot is $75.
Size of raise?

Both cases I had aces, but I am mostly interested in getting feedback on bet sizing against such a large number of callers.

S1: $60 total

S2: $50 total

Why do we 3bet less versus a larger field? I tend to make my 3bets 3-4x + 1 per caller, same as preflop raises. My thinking for this is that I don't want everyone taking the flop for too cheap and giving them the implied odds to try and crack my hand.

Is the 3bet sizing also smaller due to the middle villains calling who are all on shorter stacks? If these players mostly had $200+ do we make a larger 3bet?

$60 - 70 both times.

"I am the only player to 3 bet him in the past 2 hours, and took down both pots on the flop."

S1- $105
S2- $95

IT DEPENDS.

If 3 betting causes everyone to fold, then you shouldn't 3 bet at all, you should just smooth call.

Likewise, if several of the players are of the type that once they are in, they are in, then you should shove.

You should raise large enough that 2-3 people fold, but not so large that you only get 1 caller. Generally, you want 2 to 3 to call your raise.

So after observing how many called your raise in Scenario 1 -- You should be the best judge of how much to raise in Scenario 2 -- not the message board.

In S1, I had a feeling that any raise from me in the BB may cause a mass fold, but I cannot come up with a good reason to play aces against 4 other players OOP, so I don't see calling as an option. I raised to $60, and everyone folded.

In S2, I again believed villains 2-5 may again fold to any raise, as my read was that they were willing to play almost anything against the LAG, but would fold to any pressure from me. However, I also thought that villain 1 was starting to tire of my coming over the top of him (I had done so again in smaller pot just a few hands earlier, and I was still the only player to 3bet him). I again raised to $60, V1 called, and everyone else folded. He check called the flop, and folded the turn.

The reason I asked this question is not for the board to make my decisions for me, but to get some insight as to what others would do, and hopefully why.

Good, nothing wrong with that, $60 was a reasonable raise, just not for that table.

Based on what happened in S1, Maybe try $40 in S2 to get more than just V1 to play along.

90 both times. Live players tend to call reraises a lot lighter. You could even raise higher. I would not recommend raising less than $60, whatever you do, but would myself usually raise more in order to create larger pots to lure my opponents all in on the flop.

I get what you are saying. Vs2-5 were so weak tight that there probably wasn't an amount to get them into the pot unless they were holding queens or better. My main concern was getting V1 to come along the second time, as I thought he had the best chance of all to stack off light.
Now the fellows that followed a couple of hours later - they were fun. If they limped, they called most any raise, and if they called a raise they called most any re-raise. Good times.

Then the correct answer to S1 for the fellows that followed a couple of hours of later would be: SHOVE on the reraise. And if more than 1 called, SHOVE AGAIN on the reraise in S2.

From watching HSP, I've observed that several of the big dogs base their bet-sizing on the pot after they've called the bet. Hand 1: $75, Hand 2: $90. So I'd bet 75%-100% of these numbers.

I am assuming you are asking me, even though you did not quote me or such...

In S2 I am raising less primarily because of the weak/tight description from the OP. When I am RR in these hands I am trying to do two things, first I am trying to thin the field, especially in S1 being in the SB. And I am trying to build a pot that I can play for stacks post flop without having put out scary bets OTF/T.

So in summary I am trying to find a reasonable balance between value and FE so that I am not trying to play one pair (albeit the best one pair) against a big field. I want 1 or 2 callers and enough going into the pot PF so I can make 1/2 to 2/3 pot bets and get it AI before the river.

The alternate to this line of thinking is to make huge RR to something like $100 and let the villains talk themselves into thinking that my hand is not as strong as it is and call lighter as a result or shove as a result. But that takes some very specific dynamics and reads to make it work.

I think you want to raise with AA to accomplish a couple of things. The first is that you want to have the pot even with 1 caller such that your SPR is under 4. The second is you want to leave enough room to play a two street game. You want to give a villain the opportunity to float your obvious missed AK and take the pot from you later. Therefore for hand 1 the minimum to raise is to $45. If one person calls, the pot is $135. You make a $70 cbet. If called, the pot is $275 and you have $235 left. On the turn, you can check behind, call his bet on a relatively safe board or wait until the river and "bluff."

If you bet $100 and get a caller, the pot is $260 and you have $250 left. You can't make a cbet. If you shove, the villain has to screw up his courage to call if he can talk himself into believing you can bluff shove your stack with ace high.

#1: ~$90
#2: depends on result of #1

Nice post. Thanks. I have a hard time with this. Whats the quickest way to figure this out at the table?

1. 75
2. 60

You want a SPR of around 4. That means you divide your stack by 4 and that's about the size you want the pot to be if you are called. In the first case, the stack is 350, so you want the pot to be around 90. You don't want to min raise, so the next level is $45. That gets it over 90, so you don't want to bet more.

I ended up with $60, mainly because I made a bit of a math error at the time. I was aiming for an SPR of 3-4, but miscalculated.

I like this...depends if they knew what you reraised to and if you showed down the aces for sure. In general theres enough money in the pot for me on hand 2 to make the raise large enought that the small stacks are all in and make villain one contemplate a four bet push with any decent hand....so like 135 seems good.

$100 in first hand, $110 in 2nd hand. LOL @ "$50" in Hand 2, there are FIVE players @ $15 in the hand before us. What will $50 accomplish?