The importance of position

I've been involved in a 2p2 forum discussion about AQo in the SB and raising it with regards to Rush poker. Here is the hand:

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: $27.10
BTN: $47.20
Hero (SB): $50.25
BB: $28.75
UTG: $37.90
UTG+1: $50.50
UTG+2: $66.30
MP1: $51.70
MP2: $27.75

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with Qh As
UTG calls $0.50, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls $0.50, 2 folds, CO calls $0.50, BTN calls $0.50, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, UTG calls $3, UTG+2 calls $3, CO raises to $27.10 all in, 1 fold ???

My response of:
Some will call me crazy, but I'm *DEFINITELY* not raising up AQo in the SB. I'm overlimping and folding a bad flop. That said, I'm likely calling here for the following reasons:

a. CO had an opportunity to raise when his action came around; he chose not to.
b. CO cannot expect to get a PF opportunity to raise again; he has BTN (who unless he has serious information on - but does not because it's Rush - cannot reasonably expect BTN to raise for him) who will likely be call / folding and the blinds who will be likely call / folding from out of position. Therefore, *HIGHLY* doubtful he has QQ+, AQ+.
c. When he shoves, there's about $8.50 in the pot already, which makes your 50/50 prop that much sweeter with the dead money.

Sparked a little thought in my head that I wanted to get out on this blog. My follow up:

Weird play by V. Not seeing overcall from CO/BTN -> 3bet shove SB raise very often... if ever. Simply weird. It's like he missed his opportunity in the first go around; meant to hit raise but accidentally hit call, but then was presented with your raise and a second chance.

BTW, reason I'm not raising out of SB with AQo is it's too easily flipping from a host of limpers like you have, and it's going to be difficult to play post flop with a bloated pot and out of position. For example, let's say A 4 7 hits the flop or something similar... add in a two-tone board. What are you doing in that spot? Depending on the overcallers you get, which, based on your raise, you get at least 2 of them, what are you doing? You have absolutely NO idea of where you are in the hand... likely those limpers limped pocket pairs ranging from 22-99+, weak and strong Aces, etc. Are you going crazy with this hand? Make it even more difficult for you: turn is a Q so you're Aces up... Now what?

Point is, IMO, raising AQo OOP with that many limpers is looking for potential disaster. It's almost the same thing with AK, and one could argue the same line as I take above, but at least you know that unless someone has played tricky and slow played AA / KK, you're likely a coin flip against the table. All of that said, if you have AQs or AKs, you can at least flop a nuts-type draw, which lends more power to the suited-ness of raise and gives more credence to raising that spot.

Finally, if you're going to raise OOP like that, making your play a quasi-squeeze, make it a stronger-than-normal raise. You raised to $3.50 from $2.75 in the pot (if my math is correct). I don't believe that a pot-sized raise is good enough in this spot; I think I would make it $4.50-$5.00, discouraging the SCs and small PPs from making their calls profitable (based on the 10x rule of people looking to call small PPs / speculatives for 10x implied stacks).

and finally, a hand example:

To ram home my prior point a little better, take a look at this hand:
Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $200.30
SB: $32.00
BB: $52.65
UTG: $61.70
Hero (UTG+1): $300.05
UTG+2: $26.60
MP1: $145.70
MP2: $361.20
CO: $197.45

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is UTG+1 with Kc As
1 fold, Hero raises to $4, 4 folds, BTN raises to $18, 3 folds

Final Pot: $9.50
BTN wins $9.50

I have no problem doing this; UTG+1 4x raise reps a big hand. When BTN over-the-tops me for 4.5x, time to shut down... perhaps even shutting down KK. I take a missed opportunity and a $4 loss, but I know exactly where I am at the end of the day.

Just wanted to copy my thoughts to my blog for my readers if they're interested...