[Kumubou]

I will take a stabby stab stab. What is the guven table texture? (With five limpers you would have to figure loose; a table full of TAGs limping like that would be scary, if a bit odd.)

AQo is the kind of hand that is a monstar heads-up but loses much of its value as more people enter the pot, as it has little other than big card value (which it has lots of). You probably have the best hand here, but your equity edge is not garguantan here, and will drastically change depending on the texture of the flop. Raising here will almost certainly bloat the pot and make it correct for even marginal draws (gutshots, combo backdoor straight/flush draws, etc.) to continue on.

On the flop, you have lots of fun trying to deal with reverse implied odds (of roughly 900,000 to 500). At least your pair cards do not give anyone straights, (although the Q does give some hands a straight redraw). You may be reverse dominated. You may be way behind a set already. Someone could have some random-ass two pair. Considering the number of the people in the pot, someone hit something on this board. You are drawing to a rough guess of 4 outs -- two overcards that in and of themselves do not make the board terribly scary, but there is the likelihood of a made hand already pwning you, or at least one of the cards you hold. I think three outs is too tight (maybe not, with this many people involved) but giving the full six is too much, and anything less the pot is too small to continue on.

Not to say I agree with the moves (the flop play goes out the window if you raise pre-flop), but I think I see the reasoning... I think.

-K