Another multi-way AA Limit Hold'em question

On the button with AA, 4 limpers (2 EP, 1 MP, and the cutoff, for example). To raise or not to raise?

Of course the answer is table dependent but if you raise you'll probably get 4, 5 or even 6 calls (who folds for 1 bet preflop when the button raised?), making the pot 11.5-14 small bets. A lot of hands will be correct in drawing against you here. If they make as little as a pair on the flop and are drawing to a 5 outer, they're correct in drawing on the turn, also.
Is it maybe better to just call and give bad odds to the gutshots on the flop? To give KQ a chance to pair and give you some good action (and drive out the draws)? You'll still run into the small sets, but that'd happen if you raise (and flush draws and good straight draws, and pair-overcard-backdoor draws).
So my question is this: Is the potential for incorrect action (and consequent expectation) after the flop worth the 4.5-6 small bets you don't get in before the flop?

Postscript thoughts: If the gutshots won't call at 7-1, but KQ will call on overcards and the pair-and-backdoor-draws will look at the turn and improve or release.

The best traps look natural. What's more natural than the button calling after 4 limpers?

Raising on the button doesn't REALLY give the strength of your hand away, you may get the loose action afterward anyway.

You only gain when the other player(s) make a mistake, so why encourage the small bet mistake and the correct action with the big bet? Manipulate the pot size in order to create mistakes.

If one of the blinds decides to raise with JTs (or AKs) or something, I can always make it 3 bets on my action. Either they'll go to 4 bets to narrow the field (and lots of bets die) or everybody calls 1 more bet and it's catch-me-if-you-can (because it's hard to fold before the river with 15-20+ smalls before the flop).

Is this the Key Lepanto?

[trumpman84]

You aren't raising to protect your hand, you are raising for value. Not raising is a huge mistake. If you have 40% equity (I haven't run the numbers but its possible its higher if you are against something like AK, KQ, KK, TT, and some random hands like T9, QJ) against 6 people preflop, for every dollar everyone puts in, you are getting a .40 return. In the most extreme case, its capped 6 ways preflop (at 1/2), you put in 4 dollars to win 26 and have 40% equity so thats a $9.60 profit. Also, the large pot might encourage people to put more money into the pot almost dead after the flop. I doubt AK isn't coming along for 1 or 2 more bets on an all rag flop.

[winky51]

Always raise with AA period, most equity no mattter how many callers. AND you will actually know better if your beat at some point. LIMPING is a losing proposition.

[Xhad]

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Of course the answer is table dependent

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No it isn't. If you want to give some exact hand ranges I can give back some pokerstove numbers, but not raising in this situation is criminal. You have too much equity to make it up with skillful postflop play, especially since you will rarely be able to fold postflop except in very extreme situations.

Your arguments do apply to hands like AJo or KQo where your edge is generally small, assuming you even have one. Not the case with AA though (or even AKo for that matter).

[Solami17]

I personally feel that raising here may be a mistake (some of the times). Depending on table image and the ability of your opponents, raising more often than not is very correct. However, I feel that inexperienced, low-limit players have a have a hard time letting AA go. Folding AA in a pot that has been raised may make it even that much harder to get rid of it when an unfavorable flop/turn comes. This is especially true with 6 players already in.

[Xhad]

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I personally feel that raising here may be a mistake (some of the times).

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You feel wrong. This is not a close decision, failure to raise AA on the button is terrible and that is a fact.

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However, I feel that inexperienced, low-limit players have a have a hard time letting AA go. Folding AA in a pot that has been raised may make it even that much harder to get rid of it when an unfavorable flop/turn comes. This is especially true with 6 players already in.

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If you have a leak in your game, do not introduce an even bigger leak to "fix" it. In fact, if you're a weak postflop player you'd better raise NOW while you have the best hand possible. Automatically going to the river with unimproved AA (especially against the types of people that make six-handed pots in the first place) is a smaller leak than not raising it preflop.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that the reason why not giving up AA isn't a huge leak is because situations where you are clearly supposed to fold (not knowing your opponents' cards) don't come up that often compared to the times you make a big hand or hold up UI. Remember, you always have at least an overpair.

[RiverDood]

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I personally feel that raising here may be a mistake (some of the times). Depending on table image and the ability of your opponents, raising more often than not is very correct. However, I feel that inexperienced, low-limit players have a have a hard time letting AA go. Folding AA in a pot that has been raised may make it even that much harder to get rid of it when an unfavorable flop/turn comes. This is especially true with 6 players already in.

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I'll have to disagree. The people who have the hardest time letting go of AA are the ones who limp preflop to keep all the suckers in and then can't believe that an unfavorable board has left them behind. The worse the board gets (i.e. a four-flush of a non-AA suit), the more they try to bully their way into a pot by betting too hard.

Bet when you're ahead. Fold when you're behind. . . . In situations like this, ABC poker works like a charm.

Thanks for the responses, guys, but you seem to have misunderstood my question a little. This isn't a low-limit, high limit question, it's thoeretical. In the main and in a vaccuum, you're correct and raising with this much equity in the pot isn't wrong. It just may not be the most right. I've played this and thought about it some and this is the horse race paradox for Hold'em (SCSFAP, p.141, also related to "protecting your hand when the pot is extremely large" SSHE p.163.). Briefly, anyone that flops a gutshot is ok (pot-wise) to draw at the Aces and profit (at least for 1 card and if enough do, then for both, I believe this is called "schooling") IF the raise goes in.
I'm looking for, among other things, the curve between hand strength and pot "juice" to cover the disparity on future betting rounds. I'm actually thinking this play would work better with KK, as I could just get out if an A flops (but more vulnerability on the last two cards is a downside). Trying it with QQ or JJ just seems like asking for it (even raising JJ doesn't seem very good here). It's not just a question of probability, however.
When I wrote the answer is table dependent, what I meant was "if they're going to take 3-1 to draw to a gutshot, charge them to draw at you, if they're limping with J5o, charge them to draw at you. If they're limping with 98s and TT and 45s, this is a different ballgame and at some point, between number of limpers and quality of hand, you'll end up with the worst of it against the field" (or maybe I've got it backwards and you raise the people who play good hands and let the trash go unraised). If all 6 other players have a PP and none conflict, you'll pretty much need a set in order to play after the flop, right? So you're a 7-1 dog to flop it and you're getting 6-1. Extreme example? Sure. Theoretical question. (I know there's a hole here. If you see it, you should understand why it's not really important. If I'm wrong and it is, let's talk about it)
The other part is looking for correct action from the field and very incorrect action from the second best hand. Imagine limping with TT UTG, getting 5 calls/checks to the flop and the flop AT6. As long as nothing too scary shows up, you'd cap it on every street, right? And what the hell does the button have that he's so proud of that he's pushing it right back at you? He can't have AA, he limped! He seems pretty solid, so that 8 on the turn didn't help him, must be a small set or AT or he's gone nuts with AK or something. Meanwhile, the betting between top set and #2 drives out the weak draws (even a nut flush draw has a pretty marginal call on the turn if the action is capping). Making "the 10 BB mistake" will shake that guy up and keep the table guessing for a while.
If limping with the AA makes someone incorrectly fold their gutshot a hand or round or day or week later, you keep gaining. But, some players won't care or remember or care if they remembered. How much is 40% of those 6 small bets really worth?
Against the bulk of circumstance, I think raising is the best play. But a point exists (I think) where limping is better.
Other related launching points for this question include the parenthetical section of the last paragraph of HPFAP p.93, when the pot gets big, ibid p.167 and Adjustment based on Players skill ibid p.177. These all fit together, somehow, I think, in this situation.
Position and table history also have to make some difference. How do these variables fit into the system? However the variables like player ability, hand distribution, position, recent history and long-term history fit into the equation, the math, function, curve, whatever you call it, it exists.

Anyone know what it is?

[RiverDood]

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If all 6 other players have a PP and none conflict, you'll pretty much need a set in order to play after the flop, right? So you're a 7-1 dog to flop it and you're getting 6-1. Extreme example? Sure. Theoretical question. (I know there's a hole here. If you see it, you should understand why it's not really important.

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Stop the insanity! You've got a million ideas going on in your post, some of them quite interesting and provocative -- but all too often you're skating from one muddled bit of analysis to another.

Lets slow down and take an accurate look at what happens when you play AA against six other pocket pairs. I've tried to randomize them for suits.

Holdem Hi: 501942 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As Ac 155748 31.03 345266 68.79 928 0.18 0.311
Kd Kh 94765 18.88 406249 80.94 928 0.18 0.189
Qc Qd 72314 14.41 428700 85.41 928 0.18 0.144
Ts Th 59133 11.78 441881 88.03 928 0.18 0.118
8c 8h 48823 9.73 452191 90.09 928 0.18 0.098
5s 5d 41505 8.27 459509 91.55 928 0.18 0.083
2s 2h 28726 5.72 472288 94.09 928 0.18 0.057

AA has a 31% chance of winning, which is more than double the average for other PPs, and significantly more than the times that AA will flop a set. There are all sorts of non-set boards in which AA will win, unimproved. 334, 347, 34J, etc., etc., etc. Also, AA will win any four-flush board in its suit. Those show up about 1% of the time in each suit.

Yes, if there's a ton of dead money already in the pot, some thin draws can keep playing the turn and river against you. But -- guess what! -- you have enormous +EV in that exact situation, because you have by far the best shot at all that dead money, too. Each player gets to factor that dead money into his/her calculations. The EV of playing on does not sum to zero.

Would you rather have a 50% chance of winning a 10BB pot? Or a 31% chance of winning a 20BB pot? In any game where you can stomach the variance, the second is clearly the better choice.

[Xhad]

No, I understand the question and the analysis, and as I said everything you say is absolutely correct for certain hands (I don't raise KQo, KJo, or AJo in this situation for exactly the reasons you mention, and it's possible it might be true for certain PPs, but certainly not AA-JJ)

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When I wrote the answer is table dependent, what I meant was "if they're going to take 3-1 to draw to a gutshot, charge them to draw at you, if they're limping with J5o, charge them to draw at you.

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How about charging them to see the flop in the first place? They won't ALWAYS flop a draw. Most of the time they won't flop anything (good hands or bad), take their money before they know that.

The thing I said about Pokerstove numbers? Here you go:

Hand 1: 51.0742 % 51.02% 00.06% { AA }
Hand 2: 15.7088 % 15.65% 00.06% { TT }
Hand 3: 16.1136 % 16.06% 00.06% { 98s }
Hand 4: 17.1034 % 17.05% 00.06% { 54s }

50% equity is not a small edge in a four-handed pot, that's enormous and failing to exploit it is atrocious.

The huge problem is that keeping the pot a certain size to induce a mistake is something you do when it is likely that bloating the pot will affect whether you call on a later round (hence, don't raise with KJo here as it will often force you to call a AT5 rainbow flop). Otherwise who cares if your opponent is correct to call on a later round if he already put in incorrect calls on this round? They're just chasing money that they were incorrect to contribute in the first place! As I said above, folding AA postflop just isn't something you're routinely doing so you're just throwing away money in your attempt to be clever.

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The other part is looking for correct action from the field and very incorrect action from the second best hand. Imagine limping with TT UTG, getting 5 calls/checks to the flop and the flop AT6. As long as nothing too scary shows up, you'd cap it on every street, right? And what the hell does the button have that he's so proud of that he's pushing it right back at you? He can't have AA, he limped!

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I call FPS, even if you raise preflop they will know you could very well have AK. And more often what happens is that people who miss the flop (that would have called your raise) fold after the flop and you lose a bet from them, and then someone makes top pair and bets into you/calls down, which he would have done anyway.