Thoughts on raising multi-player pot when player is all in?

[snowbank]

Just curious to see what other people thought about raising a pot when one player is all-in. Let's say I'm playing .25/.50. One player is all-in with his last 1.70. He gets 3 callers and I'm on the button. I raise it to 5 to try and isolate the all-in player. Everyone else folds and I take down the pot against the all-in with my A-J off. This happened last night. What is everyone else's stance on this? Bad play? Good play? All comments appreciated.

[Rynofasho]

I think the raise would be a good idea, but only if you can meet a few criteria. One, you must be PRETTY sure that your raise is going to force off all other action. Make sure no other players pot committed themselves calling the initial $1.70, because if they called off 75% of their stack their, they will want to defend the rest. Other thing I'd be worried about is obviously position. AJ isnt a terribly strong hand to go reraising with and you could be in big trouble if you reraise early and get a lot of action on that raise.

[snowbank]

I agree, the positioning was very important here. I was on the button, and everyone had just called the bet, no raises. Everyone had good sized stacks who called the all-in so no one was very pot committed.

[Saint_D]

Poker is not a team sport. Whenever it's to your advantage to raise when someone is all in, do it.

Sometimes it's harder than others to determine when it's to your advantage.

If someone is all in, I think long and hard before I call them. A lot of callers means a lot more chips to that all in player if they happen to win.

[jack spade23]

I like the raise as long as you are sure that the other players are calling only because the pot odds are correct, ie: it is a very small amount to pay to put someone out. If you make it a bigger risk for them to call, they will only call all is with group 1-4 hands.

[ResidentParanoid]

Is your example pre-flop? If so, how did he get $1.70 into the pot.

[Monty Cantsin]

In tournament play there are some partly-etiquette partly-pragmatic reasons not to bluff into a dry side pot. In cash games it's purely a matter of comparing your chances against the field versus your chances against the all-in player divided by the likelihood you can get everyone else to fold, right?

/mc

[snowbank]

I really don't understand your response about poker not being a team sport. Poker as a team sport is cheating(collusion).

[snowbank]

My example is pre-flop. The player had $1.70 in chips remaining.

[snowbank]

Right. Which is why I was curious to see people's opinions on this. What is your opinion????