[yad]

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Thanks, aj, these polls are great and this is one of the more interesting ones so far.

Was curious on the idea of reraising preflop after SB's push. I thought call might be better because you're going to have to hit anyway to win this pot. So raising to shut out MP seems somewhat pointless. If MP is weak/loose, might make sense to let her in alongside and let him pay you off in the side pot when you hit. But I'm not at all sure about this logic. And of course if SB can make this move with AQ or something then this doesn't apply.

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The reason you reraise is twofold. One you are likely ahead and you don't want to let MP see the flop for nothing when you have the opportunity to charge them. Also, their money is in the pot and you are currently in a threeway pot with the shorty all in. If you can reraise and fold them out, you are likely in a coinflip with shorty, but you have the added benefit of MP's dead money in the pot, making this a very +ev coinflip. You don't know for sure what MP has...maybe they have something like QJ...in that case you don't have them dominated and their equity is considerably better than if they have AQ or AJ....you just don't know so charge them preflop the max. If they are willing to call that large reraise with one of those hands, it's ok, because you are still a favorite. Basically it's an opportunity to increase your odds of winning a nice pot with an all in opponent while not really risking the money you are betting, assuming that MP folds. I routinely make this isolation play against an all in short stack with a wide range of hands...some of them considerably worse than AKs.

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I see your general point, and I agree that raising puts you in a nice +EV position. But this doesn't really answer my question, that calling could be more +EV. What I was trying to say is the following:

Assume SB has some kind of small PP. If this is not true, I admit my argument is completely wrong. Assume MP has QJ/AQ/something similar. Now two ways this can play out:

1. You don't hit an A or K. SB wins the pot, and fact that MP is in there doesn't really matter to you.

2. You do hit an A or K. So you're way ahead of QJ, or AQ/AJ/whatever else MP might have. If MP has also got a piece of the flop, he's still way behind you, but is likely to pay you. Only way this costs you is when MP flops two pair or straight or something. Perhaps this is not worth risking given the dead money in the pot, but it's not obvious to me that it isn't worth the risk.

Just trying to learn a bit here -- consensus on this thread seems to be that raising PF is better but I'm not sure I understand it.