silly sng player decides to dip into ring again today ...

... for some odd reason. a nice small $0.05/$0.10 table ... now from my "experience" with these tables (which is very limited), a 4xBB raise preflop is usually enough to cut it down to around 2 callers, rarely 3 callers. this here hand was my first hand at this table, so i had no read on the table whatsoever, thus my "standard" preflop raise. when i got four callers, i was like, "wtf??" although, looking back, i guess i should have taken the number of limpers into account, shouldn't i?

anyway, how do you play this hand from the flop on? what do you put him on? this is probably a standard type HH, but i'm terrible at ring and really have no idea if i should have done something differently.

PokerStars Game #2952464343: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2005/11/02 - 01:48:00 (ET)
Table 'Aoluta' Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: tazman13 ($5.05 in chips)
Seat 2: courtiebee ($10 in chips)
Seat 3: Reno King ($16.70 in chips)
Seat 4: HouseDJ4Life ($8.20 in chips)
Seat 5: SmokedYou ($5.70 in chips)
Seat 6: IMinPALMDALE ($2.95 in chips)
Seat 7: KessMag ($9.60 in chips)
Seat 8: media1 ($5.60 in chips)
warcoug will be allowed to play after the button
tazman13: posts small blind $0.05
courtiebee: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to courtiebee [Ac Kd]
Reno King: calls $0.10
HouseDJ4Life: folds
SmokedYou: calls $0.10
IMinPALMDALE: calls $0.10
HouseDJ4Life leaves the table
KessMag: calls $0.10
media1: calls $0.10
tazman13: calls $0.05
courtiebee: raises $0.40 to $0.50
Reno King: calls $0.40
SmokedYou: folds
IMinPALMDALE: calls $0.40
KessMag: calls $0.40
media1: calls $0.40
tazman13: folds
*** FLOP *** [Ad 8s 7d]
courtiebee: bets $2
Reno King: calls $2
IMinPALMDALE: folds
KessMag: folds
media1: folds
*** TURN *** [Ad 8s 7d] [3s]
courtiebee: bets $3
Reno King: calls $3
*** RIVER *** [Ad 8s 7d 3s] [4s]
courtiebee: checks

Pre-flop I hate this spot. No easy answers. Just a well defined hand out of position and it's not even QQ+. In the $100 game I sometimes just check here as I really hate every option and that seems to be the cheapest way to suck.

Another option is making it $1 flat, hope to take it down pre-flop (I don't think your hand is worth more than the money already in the pot), fail that you'll usually get it heads up or have a silly big enough pot to just put it all in if you hit. That kind of action couldn't hurt your table image either.

Bet the river and think about flop + turn bet sizes to figure out how much you want to stick in here and when you want to get it in. Out of positon, I'm more inclined to get more money in on the flop or turn.

I have found that I lose most of my money OOP. I either check or bet the pot here preflop. Your flop bet was quite nice but I would've bet closer to $3-4 on turn and gone AI on the river. I think that at these stakes they will pay you off with Ax most of the time. I would like to just build the pot here One argument for thinning the field on every street is smallering the chance them hitting 2 pair. With so many opponents that is quite likely..

Still, not a horrible play.

Hmm so I should have bet the river? I also thought that he had a weaker ace, but when he called both my bets, I started worrying. I'll make a mental note to sometimes just check with AK in EP with multiple limpers (or raise more than 4xBB).

At showdown, he showed A3 of hearts and won with two pairs. So he got his kicker on the turn. If you were him playing, would you have reraised me on the turn? I find his check on the river strange.