You make the call...

First, the setup:

You’re at a local multi-tabled tournament in your city. You’ve been hitting this place more for the social scene rather than honing your poker skills. More than half of the people there, you would call friends (not necessarily close but still) and it’s generally a “fun” event. The tournament you’re playing in is for a whopping $50. However along with that $50 you will also get a chance to qualify for an entry into a monthly $1,000 tournament of champions with winners of other tourney’s around the city. Then the top three qualifiers of this tourney, move on to a year-end tournament for a single entry into the WSOP. So there is some seriousness to it.

Okay, here’s the scenario:

There are 75 entrants on this night and you’ve been seated at the featured table. Over the course of the first hour you’ve been drawing some incredible hands; AA - once, KK – twice, QQ – once and smaller PP at least 3 other times. Each time your hand has held up and as a result you are second in chips only to another player seated two seats to your right who has also been on an incredible winning streak. Five players have been busted out from your table so far and they have been replaced. After starting with $5,000 in chips you are holding roughly $16,000 in chips and the chip leader is holding roughly $16,500. The blind are at $125/$250 on a full table when this hand comes up…

You’re on the button, both blinds post (putting $375 into pot), the cards are dealt and the first guy to act raises 3xBB.
Archie (a.k.a. player 1) - a pretty solid player (he’s a player you’ve played against several times before). He’s rarely ever caught making a risky bluff and he’s almost always able to show the goods when it comes to the showdown. You could label him as a:
Good/Solid/Aggressive player.
Chips stack size - $4,400
Pot size - $1,125

The next player to act re-raises to 6xBB.
Barry (a.k.a. player 2) - a little loose with his betting but still semi-solid player over all. His problem is that he occasionally over-values a painted hands and tends to be a little Ace happy. You could label him as a:
OK/Semi-Loose/Agg-Pass player.
Chips stack size - $6,300
Pot size - $2,625

The next player to act cold calls.
Charlie (a.k.a. player 3) – he’s the odd man out at the table. An obvious call station, who will play Ax, panted hands and almost any suited connector. He only raises with premium hands like AK, AA, KK or QQ; otherwise he’s just calling. Also, he’s a very tricky player who frequently uses the check-raise to pop unsuspecting players and almost always tries to steal the blinds. You could label him as a:
Poor/Semi-Loose/Pass-Agg & Tricky player.
Chips stack size - $3,400
Pot size - $4,125

Next player cold calls.
David (a.k.a. player 4) - Here's the wild card of the bunch. You’ve never seen this guy before tonight and in thirty minutes of play (he replaced one of the first guys to bust out at your table) you haven’t seen this guy go to the show-down once. He has either folded or won the hand on or before 4th Street. His betting during this time seems to be pretty straight-up with standard 3x-4xBB raises from late position and no PRF’s from early or middle position. Your best guess for a label on him would probably be a:
Solid/Semi-Tight/Semi-Agg player.
Chips stack size - $5,500
Pot size - $9,750

Next player (a.k.a. player 5) folds. He’s SS w/ $2,200.

Next player re-raises to $1,000.
Edward (a.k.a. player 6) – The chip leader. Like you he’s been running rough-shot over the other players since busting out a maniac on the 3rd hand who went all-in on a semi-bluff (holding 44) with QQ. He’s a little loose calling with semi-marginal hands from time-to-time but he’s been catching a lot of cards and generally winning with 2P or better. You could label him as a:
Poor-OK/Semi-Loose/Agg player.
Chips stack size - $16,500
Pot size - $10,750

Next player (a.k.a. player 7) folds. He’s also SS w/ $2,000.

You’re next to act (a.k.a. player 8 ) and you look down at AA. Remember you are sitting on $16,000 (second in chips). The SB and BB have both been sitting at the table for less than an orbit and have chip stacks between $7,000 & $8,000. You don’t have much of a read on them because they’ve folded every hand since joining the table.

So there's no real obvious question here, you going to be moving all-in - that's pretty much a given. But with that said, there is a point to this set up, I'd like to see you rationalize your answer with the reads that you’ve been provided and give some insight on what their actions prior to your turn to act have on your decision (if any). In other words, with the information you have please work out what you think each player is possible holding and tie that into what move you make. Please don’t just say, “I’d move all-in.”

NuRelic

PS
This was an actual hand played out a few weeks back and I'll post what happened along with with hands I know (or was told) that the other players had after getting some feedback.

the pot is huge already. and you have rockets. best hand possible.
you move all in to isolate and/or take it down.

has nothing to do with the players skill sets.

I say you need to push/shove here, AA's are good but you don't want 4 callers against them. That is a recipe for disaster. Odds are you will get a caller if not you still pick up a nice pot.

No offense, but with a decision this easy, the other players' possible holdings and playing styles are completely irrelevant.

The answer to most poker decisions is "it depends". It depends on all of the things you've listed, and with any other hand other than pocket aces, this would be a good exercise. This decsion, however, is fairly easy.

Poker is about making the correct decision, not the end results. This decision is to go all in. Whatever happened after that point, even if you lost, doesn't make the decision wrong.

This is generally the response I get to my question about this hand, but as I stated in the original post, moving all-in is a fore-gone conclusion. The point here is to see if you can get a read on what everyone else is holding.

Obviously I'm going to push and (because I'm posting it here) I obviously end up losing when I get called. The point of the Q&A is to see if (1) you can guess what everyone else is holding, (2) guess how many callers you are likely to get, (3) what your odds of winning are with each call to the all-in move and (4) to determine whether you want action or not. This isn't about what you do with the Aces, but rather what more you might be able to do in order to get action or prevent it. There's a part two to this, but we need to get through part one first.

Remember; this is a live game, not an online game and as such there are some differences that I'm curious to see how others here might handle.

NuRelic

Here is my guess...

Player 1= AQoff

Player 2= QQ

Player 3= K10s

Player 4= KK

Player 5= probably KJo but folds because of all the action and it is just a dominated hand no matter how you look at it

Player 6= 1010

conclusion is...i have a bad feeling that donkey player 3 hit a flush and got rewarded for his crap play.

I don't see how anybody can possibly answer the question. There is just not enough information. Descriptions of players and one bet are just not going to cut it.

NuRelic has given a truckload of information.

You definately shove here. Really i would expect all players to fold here except for player 6 who will call with TT+/AKo/AKs whcich i feel are his most likely holdings.

Player 1 IMO is good enough to fold JJ or worse and AKs or worse although it is a possibility he may call with AKs although i feel he is good enough to realise with all the calls and 2 raises behind him AKs is beat. If his raising range is JJ+/AQo+ from under the gun and he only calls you with AA/KK/QQ then he will be folding 6 out of 9 hands or 66.6% of the time.

Player 2 makes it 6bb or $1500 chips which IMO because of his looseness is holding AJo+/99+. Lets say he will only call with JJ+/AQs+ which means hes calling 7 out of 12 hands or 58% of the time.

Player 3 didnt raise so IMO he will definately fold to your shove because he dosnt have a premium hand.

Player 4 shoves premiums here so he folds to re-raise because he isnt holdin premium hand.

Player 6 re-re-raises showing extreme premium hand AK+/QQ+ which he is calling all of when you shove.

So now i put the calling ranges of each player into Poker Stove along with our AA and we see that the equity fo each player here against our AA+ the other opponents is:

Player 1: 16.4%
Player 2: 15.1%
Player 6: 12.9%
Player 8(us): 55.6%

There fore our shove is +ev and definately the right decision in this situation.

I think you may have screwed up the calculations of bet/pot size as you say that player 2 re-raises to 6xBB which would be $1500 but then go on to say that player 6 re-raises to $1000. i just ignored this though, as i dont think it really affects the analysis that much because of the huge potsize anyway.

In the actual hand who called and what did they have?

Well, here’s the rest of the story…

Coming around to me I look down to see Aces and my heart rate triples. I know right here (even though there still roughly two hours left in the tourney) that this is going to be the pivotal hand of the tournament. With so much money already in the pot I want to take this pot down right now and not screw around with it. I take all of 15 seconds (mainly re-evaluating my stack size) and announce that I’m moving all-in. The fourth raise on this hand all pre-flop.

Collectively, the entire table seem to say, “Awwww jeez.” as I begin pulling out my chips and stacking them in front of me for the dealer and the rest of the table.

While I’m counting/stacking, both blinds immediately muck their cards. (I put the both of them on trash, although it didn’t matter.)

Archie meanwhile, had dropped his head and when he finally came back (about halfway through my chip count) he grabbed his cards and also threw them into the muck (because of my read on him, I put Archie on no less than Big Slick and when he folded I was pretty sure about that read).

Barry waited for the full count and when the dealer turned to him and said, “He’s got you covered” He took a deep breath followed by a long sigh and tossed his cards (I was thinking Barry might also have AK, but QQ-JJ were also possibilities).

Charlie was next to act and he almost beat Barry into the muck (this one was pretty easy, low PP or maybe suited connectors and looking for a huge suck-out).

David was different. He hesitated for awhile, setting up camp in his own little tank. As I waited for him to fold/call; I saw why he was hesitating. Edward had been studying the dealer as he and I were counted out my chip stack and as soon as we announced the count he (Edward) started stacking/counting his own stack. It was pretty obvious that he (David) was looking at the possibility of doing better than tripling up. But I think he was smart enough to know that I had Aces and that he would be severely dominated. In the end he finally opted to lay it down. (pre-fold, I put him on AK, AQ, QQ, JJ or TT; post-fold, I narrowed that range down to JJ, TT or maybe 99)

Then we were at Edward who was still counting his chips. For some reason there was a discrepancy in the count and it took several minutes before we were able to finally get a correct tally. He had $500 more than me and when he got his count he just sat there staring at his chips almost in a daze. Finally I said, “You calling?” and he said he was. As he reached for his cards I asked, “You got Cowboy’s?” (it was the only thing I could image he could have given the delay in his call) and he gave me a dirty look for some reason and turned over Queens.

Raising my eyebrows, I kinda mumbled out, “Wow” and showed my bullets. The table erupted and several players from neighboring tables (not involved in their current hand) wondered over as the players who had previously folded to my all-in, began to brief them about the action leading up to Edward’s all-in call. Obviously those who had folded were elated to have made the tough but correct lay-downs after seeing AA vs. QQ.

On the flop, my elation turned into the nightmare that you knew was coming! The door opened up to a Queen, giving him trips and the following two trash cards completed a rainbow and I immediately knew I was drawing dead based on my previous reads. Confirming this, Archie and Barry started to compared notes and when they realized what they were both holding they told me that they both held an Ace (as I was leaving I found out that indeed both of them held Big Slick). It was one of the sickest beats I’d experienced but only because I tortured myself trying to figure out some way I could have changed the outcome. No matter how I thought about it there really wasn’t anything I could do. I just posted here for laughs and grins.

The following week I asked David if he was holding JJ, TT or 99 like I had thought, but he said he didn’t remember. I don’t know what anyone else was holding but I did find out some funny news about the aftermath that resulted following this hand. Edward, having taken me out, decided that he had become invincible and started pushing everyone on every hand. Apparently it worked for a few hands leading up to the next break, but after that he went on a serious losing streak. By the time the final table was established he was 3rd or 4th SS and before the first orbit was completed he was the first knocked out, unreal! We haven’t seen him since, LOL!

Finally, I want to see if this will spark up another debate. As I mentioned I tried to think of anything I could have done differently and for the most part, there really wasn't - save one possible thing. I could have accidentally shown my hand. Bad form, illegal or something else? I prolly could have gotten away with it, if I had wanted to try it but the truth is for this type of tournament I knew I had the best hand and figured I could handle the action with one or maybe two callers (the most I believed I would get). But in a Casino, with bigger stakes I'd want to take the hand down right then and there so it got me to thinking - would this be even possible at a Casino in a real tournament?

NuRelic