2/4/10 mandatory UTG straddle.

Final hour of the night. Games tend to get a bit looser (often with more straddling), but not crazy. No one is obviously steaming.

Hero (UTG straddle) MAWG. No significant history with most V's still in the hand. No headphones; talking, joking, having a good time. Tighter and more aggressive than any of the V's. V's have likely noticed, but I've been in a reasonable number of hand hands and haven't gotten really out of line, so I don't expect them to be adjusting much. $775

Villains: Three V's are regs, but not particularly good. Loose pre, but not ridiculously so. Less aggressive both pre and post than they should be, but again not ridiculously so. AQo is a snap fold against any of them that L/RR. I don't have targeted exploits on them post. These three have $400 to $500 each.

Fourth V just sat down. No history, but it was he that suggested mandatory straddle. He just doubled up through H and covers. ($10 UTG straddle. H in BB. V RFI $35. H 3b to $125. V shoves for $429 total. H calls. Runout is 4 hearts with an A. V's announces one pair. H gestures to roll them and V's AKo is good. He comments he must have needed the A.)

OTTH

Four calls, blinds fold. H looks down at AQo.

$56 in the pot.

Check or raise? If raise, how much?

Most importantly, what's your reasoning?

action: raise.
reason: value.
sizing: 70.

Most importantly, what's your reasoning?

Raise because we basically always have the best hand.

Raise. Not only do you most likely have the best hand but it plays much better heads up then multiway.

Sizing is more table dependent. I would default to $50-$60 but what works to gets zero to one callers will vary.

I would try and avoid a game with mandatory straddles unless the smallest stack at the table is 200bb deep.

If l/rr is a possibility, I would check. It depends on who limped from where.

Ive been just checking these spots recently and really enjoying the results. I'm not sure why exactly, so I cant give you reasoning outside of seeing a very good player do it and copying him. I will say I'm in less bloated pots with 0.5 spr 5 ways with Ace high. Thats nice.

If you were going to raise, I'd go higher than $70.

$80 - we have the best unpaired hand and plenty of dead money we are happy to take down pre.
Also keeps our range uncapped and lets us win often w/ a cbet post-flop if we can narrow the field

I raise, probably to $100. Fold to a l/rr.

Reasoning - Most of the time we take down $56 without a flop which is a great result. We're almost never meaningfully behind here, so if we can get head's up that's a good result as well. By going big, we reduce the SPR and mitigate the fact that we'll be out of position, as hand will basically play itself, in that we can gii when we hit and c-bet good boards if we miss, then punt if we don't improve.

I agree with raising to about $70 - $90 (no less than $70 for sure) for the reasons above: we have the best hand and are raising for value.

75

hero builds pot w/ best hand with the intention that others come along with less good hands.

$65+ ,$80 max imo

raise to $80 is my default. very happy to take this down pre with pretty much any hand I'm raising, so why go any smaller? One call brings the rest of them too often to go too small.