Here's a situation that happened to me today. Just sat down at a full, loose 3-5 NL table. Hero has $200, all players have hero covered.

2 players limp in for $5.

Hero, 1 from button, has AK, raises to $20.

Button reraises to $40. Blinds fold, limpers call. Pot $148. Hero's action?

This is a good situation for hero and I'm certainly going to reraise, but how much? Is it better to get all the money in now or add just a little and wait for the flop? Should I raise big to knock out the limpers, or try to keep them in? Most important, how would you calculate the optimum raise size?

Lol wtf, don't play 40bbs, raise more pre for value as played easy shove

This is an extremely clear shove. You will be called by worse and flip often. Even though you probably won't ever take the pot down pre-flop, shoving gives you a chance to get all the money in, hopefully against only one player, with a dominating hand. Flatting opens you up to misplaying your hand post-flop and potentially folding the best hand to a continuation bet while allowing multi-way action lessens your chances of winning the hand.

+1
easy shove
i cann't see any other way with 40BB deep

raise to small with 2 limpers..make it 30+ and playing only 40BB gotta get it in.

by making it $175-195 you are effectively shoving and then when they put you all in you call. therefore you don't have to show your hand because you called them!

buy in for 500. min raise sucks lol usually bad players do it with QQ+. But some villains are ******ed and do it with all sorts of junk so without history it is an easy shove especially with only 40 BB's. The real question is how much do we raise if we are 100BB's deep or are we flattting?

shove duh.

What's your plan if not a shove? Make it $100 total leaving $100 behind? lol

Shove

(1) assuming one call: $328 pot against your remaining $180 on what you hope is at least a coin flip - or you may even be ahead (AQ for example). Either way this is the time to gamble! Two callers: $508 for your $180 remaining - although you may find AA or KK in that mix!
(2) You have some fold equity - your $180 may take down the entire field leaving a nice pot of $148.
(3) You don't want more than one caller with your hand - so unless your folding you can handle the raiser but the limpers must go.

The comments about how many big blinds you bought in for are misguided - but then who wants to argue? Oh wait - I do. Your small buy in has created this very spot where you have good pot odds against one caller who stands to most often be flipping with you and you will have a minimal loss if you lose the flip.

GRUNCH (means I didn't read any posts)

Your initial raise sizing is way too low. As a short stack (i.e 40bb or less) you are looking to inflate pot as much as possible pre and to shove flop. You need to brush up on your short stack game and read some articles/threads.

Your initial raise should have been $25 - $35.

As played, this is the easiest shove in the world. Pot is almost the size of your stack, you have AK and are likely up against villains JJ-AA, AK, AQs or if villain is a bit of a FPS player he could have a wider range to include mid pairs...

In any event, flatting this raise and seeing a flop is 100% incorrect.

Super duper easy shovel since we want to see all five cards. And if he has AA, meh.

Thanks for all the responses, especially the thoughtful ones. But I'm surprised to see everyone so eager to shove and knock out opponents. Most of you don't seem to have thought about it much. Assuming that reraiser has a pair (obviously, it doesn't matter what as long as it's queens or below) and will call anything, I have to pair up to win--in which case I might as well face as many opponents as possible. If you check the situation on Pokerstove, each additional opponent only reduces my chances of winning by a small amount but increases my EV a lot by adding money to the pot.

Knocking out opponents to increase your chances of winning is not always the most EV+ move. In this case, I'd like to get all my money in against all three opponents. If I don't get it all in before the flop, I'd like to get myself and them pot committed, by which I mean that a large enough percentage is in that both I and villain would call an all-in bet no matter what the flop.

One person laughed at the idea of betting $100 of my $200 stack, but if I built a $400 pot before the flop, I'd stand to earn more than I would from going all-in against one opponent.

In the event, I did go all in. Both callers folded and reraiser showed up with QQ, and it was a race. I'm still not sure I did the right thing.

p.s. to everyone who thinks the $15 raise and $20 reraise were wimpy: they got an extra $70 of dead money in the pot.

Easiest shove ever here; i'd actually be shoving alot wider vs. That guys min raise.

Yeah don't buyin for only 40bb.

But you should be getting it Allin here. IF you had a deeper stack. I'd probably 4 bet to 135~