I love to do the same thing with low pocket pairs, let's say 22-77. If there is an opener and let's say 5-6 callers (this happens really really not often) I am thinking I got 2 live cards somewhere in the deck that haven't been dealt to 6 players, so that leaves another 2 (poker stars). It's likely they may have one of my cards but I like to think this atleast increase my chance of hitting a set so I usually go way out of my normal game and call with 30% of my stack since I know I have an increased chance of hitting my set since it's 2 cards in the remaining deck and I will get payed off with all of the people in the hand. I hope you know what I am saying but I don't do this everytime. Table dynamics etc all matters too. But you get my point. I do the same when folding AK as your pal did.