I agree, and I think it has to do with the preflop sizing, but not in the way everyone else is saying.

I have a big problem with the notion that "since we didn't limit the field, we retroactively should have raised bigger". It makes no sense at all. Basically what you're saying when you say this is that you want to pick and choose which of your opponents makes a bad call and which ones make a correct fold.

I don't really see why we think we can do that.

I think if we raise enough to "limit the field", most of the time we're going to fail and get a ton of callers in a pot that's too big to reasonably get away from our hand, like we did, or we're going to get NO callers, and no value.

So I think sometimes the solution here can be to raise SMALLER, not bigger.

If we had raised smaller--say, $10 or $12--we might get 5 or 6 callers. Now we are still in a pot that's about as multiway as before, but it's roughly half the size. This gives us a bit more room to play postflop, while still getting some preflop value from hands that are going to call, whiff, and fold.

There is merit to what you are saying.
Esp if we are IP or if we can out play our villains, or preferably both.

But if we have the option of playing 2 villains for $25 into a $75 pot with an OP or 5 villains for $15 into a $75 pot we will in general win more money against 2 villains than we will against 5.
It matters that every villain made a mistake calling pre (some of them might not have if they were last to act) but if we can't capitalize on their mistaktes post flop because it becomes better than likely that 1 or more of our villains has out flopped us.

Also, if we can raise to $20 pre flop and we get two people to call, but we can also raise to $35 and get two people to call, raising to $35 is almost always better. And when they get there, congratulations, you paid the wrong price to see that flop.

Putting aside whether the statement is true or false (it might be true), it is irrelevant if we don't have that option, which in this hand we clearly did not. Our options in this hand were probably 4 villains in a $120 pot or 5 villains in a $60 pot (or something like that).

Why are you so interested in getting people not to pay you when you have the best hand?

For the record, the whole "betting less preflop idea" sucks. Pretty ridiculous. We want maximum value. If villains are calling large preflop bets, we should exploit that. OP's pre sizing is fine. Maybe slightly larger. With all that dead money, we should charge for at least of them to peel, and obviously shoving all turns.

Ya, the idea of betting smaller to setup a better SPR (i.e. larger rather than medium if we feel a small one can't be accomplished) in a multiway pot is straight outta PNLHE.

Personally, I'd still rather raise a large amount and err on the side of caution, hopefully getting my desired 1 (or 2) callers, and otherwise worst case scenario is I take down an hour+ worth of money preflop and simply move on to the next hand risk free. But sometimes no matter what size we use, the poker gods just hate us and we end up going very multiway to the flop thru not much fault of our own (which is pretty much what happened in this case).

ETA: I think one of the keys is to simply try to limit the amount of times we get ourselves in this situation. Bad players get themselves in these situations (i.e. very multiway bloated pots with TP hands) all the time, and will thus have much more opportunity of making a big mistake thru out their session. Hopefully we'll get ourselves into this situation only a fraction of the number of times others do, and thus less chance of a making a big mistake.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I agree. Raising smaller seems ******ed. Pretty much the most standard rule I have ever seen (and employ) for live at $1/2 or $1/3 is 5 BB + 1 BB per limper.

(5 * 3) + (5 * 3) = $30 and I advocate just a little higher, $35, since you still have the blinds to act. Anything less and you are going 4-way or more to the flop.

Again, Vernon's "******ed" idea of raising smaller is straight outta PNLHE, so it's not as if it's without precedence.

GalthoughIdon'tparticularlyagreewiththisideaG

GG is claiming I'm drawing from a book I've never read, but I have read NLHT&P (which also, by the way, advocates either small raises or big hand-defining raises, and $24 was neither of these), and straight out of that book is the idea that if you're using a "standard" rule that is supposed to apply regardless of stack sizes, it's probably not a good rule.

GG--you'd raise to $35-40 preflop here? Because if I were going bigger, I'd make it at least 35 and probably 40.

Standard.

Suppose you bet $85 on this flop and get check raised AI - are you planning to fold? If yes, you can probably bet less on the flop and fold to any raise. But I think that's too nitty and I am happy to get AI on this flop. For this reason I raise bigger pre to try to commit myself earlier. (ie get a lower SPR) Flopping sets or 2 pair is hard after all.

I think certain plays are "standard" because they make sense and achieve a desired result X% of the time. It's the same reason limping behind 5 limpers with AA is NOT standard.

At a *standard* $1/2 or $1/3 table, 5 BB + 1 BB per limper will thin the field. Then based on your assessments of how loose people are, you may have to bump it up to 1.5 BB - 2 BB per limper to think the field. "Standard" is just a starting point but going smaller makes absolutely no sense with effective stacks of $300.

Depends on overall looseness of table / whether some incredibly loose players have already limped / stack sizes; but assuming everyone is at ~$300, after 5 limpers at an obviously loose table I'm easily starting at $30 and wouldn't have any problem going bigger.

I mean, it's tough. We want action from 1 (at most 2) players, but this is sometimes hard to accomplish. A lot of the times we'll blow the field away and win $19 preflop (sigh, ok, next hand). And other times the BB will call, and before you know it we're going 5way to the flop (all aboard!). But there are certain raise sizes where we know for absolute certain we're going eleventeen ways (i.e. $15). $24 ain't horrendous, but it most likely wasn't going to be enough to get the job done.

I would actually much prefer overlimping to a small raise. Overlimping keeps us in a super high SPR pot, so playing AA shouldn't be *too* difficult postflop (i.e. don't stack off, do our best to play a small pot in position). Even a small juicer raise to $10 will create a $60 pot, so a very difficult multiway SPR of 5. Overlimping also gives us a chance to limp/reraise if the SB/BB are likely to get out-of-hand. Not suggesting that we overlimp; just saying I much prefer it to a small raise.

GimoG

Strongly disagree with this. If a $40 raise gets me 4 callers, I'm extremely excited about that.

EDIT: I should clarify. There is a raise size, around $35-40, where once I make that raise size I want everyone to call. So I'm happy to play a 5-way pot where everyone has put in $40 preflop--I'll just jam all flops. But I'm a lot less happy to play a 5-way pot if everyone has only put in, say, $15 or $20. That doesn't mean, though, and I'm mainly talking to GG here, that I'm so unhappy I'm not going to raise at all. It just means I will raise less than usual.

Generally I think 25-30 in this spot is ok. I mean we want TPGK hands to call not only implied odds type hands. In this case I think one of the blinds or ep happened to have a hand they were willing to call or limp call with... A pp or whatever. They obv hitched up the call train so the guys with weaker hands get pot odds in a protected pot. But a lot of the time this raise is going to be fine.

Being otb and depending on our image a big bluffy raise might get called or spazed on by TT or whatever.

Once we go 5 ways to the flop i think we have to decide if we are stacking off against every villain in the hand. If yes I think 75-85 and I'm hoping to get action from overpairs to the board and the occasional TP non believer.

Just because we got 4 callers at 25 does not mean these players have wide continuing ranges. AA is prob slightly better than even money vs. The field on this flop. There is dead money overlay so it's still a great spot. I'm just not sure that the larger raises are keeping villains continuing
ranges wide enough.

My first reaction to this hand was bet 80-90 but after a lot of thinking I like $50-60. Barely 1/2 pot but still big in absolute 1/3 terms.

I think this gets called by 8x, denies correct turn drawing odds to 9T, allows limped overpairs to spazz. Sometimes we will get an over caller giving us a pot big enough to jam into ott.

This bet sizing does allow us to OMG hero fold the flop. Vs the nittiest of nits (puke).

Grunch.
Preflop: $27-30. As played $70-$75 on the flop.

The turn depends on who called you, what position they called from, and how many people called you.
And of course what the turn card is. 2 is a good card. 6/8/9/T/J probably arent.
Raising to 27-30 preflop, assuming the same number of callers, will set you up for a turn shove after the flop bet.

I like the PF raise .. pot sized. But you could go higher if the table has been going higher anyway. Plus with the button (and the right table image) it does look like a steal also. The pot was $22 with your call .. so you raised $21 (pot).

If you table image screams your hand out face up, then for sure go higher since they will call you 'just to bust the nit' anyway. But you do want to play the same way for the top 3rd of your range here IMO. Some will say 'damned, its AA/KK so go with a bigger raise'. Again, for a nit that's fine, but if you are somewhat active, then you don't want to give away your hand strength yet.

You weren't expecting a pot this big on the Flop, but you can still c-bet $100 and put the rest in on the Turn if checked through. Nothing wrong with shoving here either, but I think you miss value to over-cards who will float one street. If you have no bullets left to rebuy, shove away and take it down. Technically, it's probably more chips than you would have gotten from 2 callers OTF and 1 call to the Turn in most cases. GL

Okay so I like to understand differing thought processes. Tell me why this is bad?

Actually, ya, I guess if we do raise a really big amount and setup a stupid small SPR then we're ok with multiple callers. Like the ridiculous case of shoving and getting called by everyone is fistpump +++EV.

I actually have no idea where the tipping point is between raise size vs we're ok with multiple callers. I guess something that sets up an SPR of ~1 we're cool with a zillion callers?

GcluelessNLnoobG

Standard raise at the table had been $15-$18. My standard open is $15 ... I actually felt sick that I went so high with this one as I was doing it. Not sure if anyone notices when you increase your raise size or not - and no one commented, why so big?

Going smaller - $10-$12 - is bringing along EVERYONE. No one will fold. Not saying whether this is good or bad.

Going bigger than $30 seems like a big waste of my hand. $45? Here's the blinds, which, as GG says, isn't the worst thing in the world, but, in a way, it is.

It's okay to go bigger because of how many people are in the hand. You can raise the amount of standard open plus the bb x number of limpers. So 15 + 5x3 = 30.

There are definitely merits to betting $50 - $60 and b/calling or b/folding depending on action/specific player reads.

i am a little surprised more people don't mention b/fold here as a more legit option on the flop.

pretty sure this was the perfect case of 'check to the PF raiser and let him bet.'

which was my thought process after thinking about the hand for a week and talking about it with a fellow poster that can we bet an amount on the flop that allows us to fold to a check/raise on such a dry board that a c/r HAS to be a hand that has us beat?

how often is a villain C/R us with 99 or TT that they limped? perhaps the blind just flatted with JJ?

what's our bet here with AK? and how often are we actually c-betting into a field this big with AK?