AA raised and called multiway to each street to showdown agaist a bunch of wide ranges is high variance, but massively +EV.

People like isolating because it deceases variance, but it does not increase EV.

In tournament play, though, reducing variance to avoid being crippled or knocked out is so critical that you almost always want to isolate with AA. Not the case in cash game.

Pretty sure isolating with any strong hand increases EV, since you're building a pot.

Since you won't play AA perfectly in a big multi-way pot, pretty sure that will decrease your EV as well.

^ We are discussing getting callers after already opening AA, and basically we are gaining additional ev as more people call (this is pretty obvious - each additional player is putting in money at a massive equity disadvantage.

Isolating (ex. 3betting) AA generates more profit because we make the pot way bigger, but if we 3b and get overcallers we're still printing even more. This is evidenced by the extreme example above of getting AA in pre 9way vs hu.

With that said, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned opening bigger. It might be reasonable to open to 5 or even 8 or 10x the bb in a game like this.

I noticed that too, but I assumed that it's because it's not a +EV move. I figured that with a huge preflop raise, if everybody folds, you win a tiny pot and when you get called, it's usually by premium hands.

It can definitely be a good exploit depending on the table. I don't really do super huge opens myself, but moving from 3x to, say, 5x is something I'll definitely consider.

did you actually try this in practice though? you've said that the majority call preflop raises, so it's not that much of a stretch to think they would call a larger raise - and with a lot of stuff, not just premium holdings. let's go back to what we were saying about having AA - assuming everyone is playing with a "standard" 100bb stack (if we're not then that changes pretty much everything already posted), then if you make it 3bb and get 5 callers, you've got 18bb in the pot and the sort of stack to pot left where you're not quite happy committing given it's a little high and there's a lot of people that might have (say) hit a set.

if, however, you make it 6bb and get two callers, you've still got a similar pot size and a similar amount left, but with less callers you're more happy to pile it in, at least on a dry board which is less likely to have helped the opponents. that your opponents likely have premium cards (if that turns out to be what they have, and not that they're "$1, $5, what the hell I'm calling anyway" types) is fine as you also likely have premium cards.

the opposite is true if you've got a drawing hand which you know is going to have to improve to win. if you've got 55, then just limp and keep the pot as small as possible. this is a fit or fold game, so work out whether you've managed to fit as cheap as you can, and keep the implied odds high. it may be +EV to raise it, but it's not going to be by much.

of course, someone will say this will make us unbalanced and exploitable, but against this sort of field it doesn't matter as they likely can't spell those words, let alone understand them.

the key thing to know is, while these players may be loose/passive pre, what they are actually willing to go to the felt with. if they're the types that will play a lot of hands but not commit a lot of money without improving significantly, that's a lot different to someone that will flop top pair with AQ and never fold for any amount of money

IMHO just the fact that the players seem loose and passive is not enough to make it a great game. A great game is when my skill level exceeds my opponents', that is the game I look for. I know plenty of players online who seem loose and passive, but are better players than myself and keep taking my money.

lots of good answers posted already. Probably the best answer to any question is "it depends"

of course that answer is utterly useless to the op and anyone else reading this. I think a much better question would be "how do I figure out starting hand ranges for Call, Fold, Raise on the button with 7 limpers in front of me and why?" or "What should my Call, Fold, Raise hand ranges be in the bb with a utg raise and 7 caller? & why?

I too would like to know the answer to my question. I think I have a pretty good idea, but I am not actually 100% certain of the answer.

Regarding the AA issue, several years ago I used a simple EV model to evaluate if thinning the field is a good idea against varying types of opponents. For AA, it turns out the bigger the field, the better, but that is not true for some other hands I looked at.

As noted, the model only considered preflop showdown equities, did not consider folds nor other factors such as position and stack size. So, it certainly can be improved, but it does gives some insight into a thin-the-field strategy.

The following thread in the Poker Theory forum provides details.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...ning+the+field