During this session I have built a bit of a stack, around 400.

UTG limps, UTG+1 that l think is a solid, competent player who covers me raises to 10, folds to CO (a weak player) who makes it 20 and I am in OTB with AxKs.

Now, since I saw my cards I am a bit scared and feel concerned about my stack and getting involved with the good player covering me. I think I probably should 4 bet to isolate better aces and prevent a likely family pot, but can't bring myself to do it, so I end up calling. Noted, this is still result orientedness/risk aversion.

One blind calls and we see a 4 way flop (80$) of

Ac8s6s

everyone checks to me with top pair, top kicker.

I guess this hands needs protection and bet 50. Everyone folds to my surprise.

I guess the bet is mandatory on the flop, is not 4! a cardinal sin here?

When a bad player makes a min raise it is likely a very strong hand so your play is fine. For a lot of opponents the near min raise here is only AA/KK and with the history on CO you could just fold this. With a bad player though you can't just discount that they don't know how to size bets well and their range is wider. So I like the call with AKo against a known mediocre player. See flop and evaluate what to do after that.

I would rather cold4bet this hand, because 1) you block AA/KK and 2) your hand plays much better hu than multiway. Let's say we cold4bet to 50 and get called by CO, flop comes identical Ac8s6s.
I would a thousand times happier go broke in this hu situation on the flop than in the scenario where we just call preflop. And in both cases, we invested 50.

That's something I'll think about, it didn't enter my calculations min raise might mean extra strong, I'm definitely thinking more along this his whole 3b range. Thinking back V during session generally raised lower than table

Are we really folding AKo because the original raiser is a competent player? I think that makes is Utg +1 range wider with good suited connectors and pairs.

I think the offsuit is also holding me back, if I were suited I'd have a lot less doubts.

No, it's not UTG+1 that is a concern here. His range from that early should be fairly tight but it isn't absurdly so. It's CO making a minimum raise that is a concern. There are a lot of players who get AA/KK and get afraid a big 3 bet would fold everybody out so they make a min raise. With a weaker hand like QQ/JJ they raise bigger because they are less interested in action and with AK they may not raise at all.

It does depend on opponent though. Once you realize that villain just bets too small in general then the 4 bet looks better. The more villain 3 bets small the better a 4 bet looks. If villain makes a good number of 3 bets but is always too small then a 4 bet is standard and you should flat call only to mix it up.

What do we know about UTG's limping style?

I can raise or flat here .. certainly mix it up based on current game flow/dynamic and my image.

If we flat, we are in position with a pretty darn good (marginally great) holding and all the action in front of us. HOWEVER, if UTG+1 is solid and has similar views of CO, then he could very easily squeeze here pretty wide in an effort to isolate or just take it down. And I think we are forced to 'double flat' in a now bloated pot, although I'm not opposed to folding either depending on the vibe .. it's just so hard to give up position with this holding. In essence though, I'm 'saving' chips by making UTG+1 do the work for me to see where CO is at .. should it come to that. Then I can re-evaluate after CO acts the 2nd time around.

If we raise, then we look pretty darn strong unless we have a squeezing image (which is probably not the case here) .. but, hey, we are strong and should charge here some of the time too. If you get pushed back on then I've made plenty of AKo folds, especially if both UTG+1 and CO remain in the hand. If UTG+1 folds and CO 4-bets then that's a really strong hand .. QQ+ .. unless you have reason to believe they spaz out with ATs here sometimes.

AP, I initially didn't like the 50, but we do want to charge something 'bigger' here with a semi-connected Board, especially if a Player has As here and you probably have them out-kicked right now. Both UTG+1 and CO may have connected via straight or flush opportunities and need to be charged to continue. Even without an Ace here, you have the strength of the double-flat that puts an Ace right in your wheelhouse and you can bet to take it down. GL

i dont mind pre but the flop bet seems a little big.

i dont like polarizing our range here because we have so many Ax in our range. esp if we flat AQo here.

its interesting to think about how to build our range pre otbÂ…like do we have 88? or T9s?

i think we should be betting smaller like $25 here. i dont see why we would want to push out the blindÂ’s random 8 or 6x hands with such a massive bet. or push out COs JJ or QQ.

Because..because I began playing poker by playing Omaha and so I have a hard coded instinct in MW pots that I there are going to be either tons of draws that will call that and I am also scared someone made a set. Obviously the second observation should rationally lead to betting less. But in general I have a hard time placing the strenght of TP and a hard time ranging what people call with in MW. Just laying out some food for thoughts for myself, this I really struggle with and not sure how to fix it.

There are other considerations too: people at this game (maybe not this session in particular) tend to chase easily on the flop with weaker ace and sometimes they fail to give up so I bet big.