[Andrew Fletcher]

[ QUOTE ]
how would you play the hand, starting from preflop. what factors would you take into accountin making your decisions? please be specific.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like the re-raise to $50, since it seems to have acomplished what you wanted. AA is hard to play out of position in a multiway pot, so my raise of $50 is designed to shrink the field and hopefully get you heads-up w/ the original raiser. Maybe if you're lucky he'll even re-raise with AK, KK, or QQ. However, I've played in 5-5 games where that raise could be $25 and accomplish the same thing. I've also played in games where it would have needed to be $75-$150. So that's entirely dependent on the game, but if you're raising for the reason I think you're raising, then I like it.

So now we're to the flop. The pot is something like $180-$200. Since they called your re-raise, we most likely eliminate AT, JT, QT, or KT from their possible hands. KK-88 is likely as is AK, AQ, or maybe AJ from a really loose player. I'd bet 2/3rds of the pot to give anyone chasing a flush draw impoper odds to call. That is also a good value bet for extracting money from someone with a big pocket pair.

I can see an argument for a push if some people on the table think you're a LAG. In my mind, you're representing AK/AQ of spades with that push. They will likely call with KK-JJ.