Any advice on this hand? I tried to get rid of the limpers, they were all idiots.
Should I just call pf? I know I'm raising OOP here...

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

UTG (t7007)
UTG+1 (t7370)
MP1 (t4948)
MP2 (t1914)
MP3 (t6763)
CO (t5228)
Button (t7950)
Hero (t4809)
BB (t7070)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, Q.
UTG calls t200, UTG+1 calls t200, 4 folds, Button calls t200, Hero raises to t1000, BB calls t800, UTG calls t800, UTG+1 folds, Button calls t800.

Flop: (t4200) 3, 5, 5 (4 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG bets t1800, Button folds, Hero folds, BB folds.

Final Pot: t6000

Results in white below:
No showdown. UTG wins t6000.

Note: he had 67 of spades

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ICM / EV Calculator and other free poker software

Limpers calling a huge pre-flop riser is one of the complexities I've still not figured out in tournaments. How can a hand that's not good enough to raise coming into a pot be good enough to call a 5x or larger pre-flop raise? It just doesn't make sense as your HH is a prime example - the donkey called with 6-7s for crying out load!

Most of the advice in this situation seems to be bet the pot which you certainly did and I've tried that too and still 3 or 4 donkeys call. I usually suspect small to mid pocket pairs but there are the dreamers calling along praying for a miricle flop! Only thing I can advise is to increase the price of admission and come in at 8x-10x and see if they still have the stomach to come-along. A second altrnative would be to limp in yourself and make it a family pot. Trouble is A-Qo doesn't like family pots!! But with blind at 200 and your stack at 16M, you have to be somewhat cautious of your raises and the pot size you're building. A c-bet on the flop would have to be about 2100+ but that gets you pot committed as well so you're looking at all-in. At these prices, maybe limping is the better alternative - I'd be interested in other opinions in regards to this!

A third option (since getting pot committed and looking at an all-in on the next bet is so very probable) would be to go all-in pre-flop and see which of the limpers have the courage to call that pre-flop raise!! I'm usually too conservative to make this kind of move with 16M and am more inclined to start using it at 10M or less but as the blinds get this high, your M shrinks faster and faster with each level and 16M will soon be only 8M when the blinds double.

BTW, why didn't you c-bet the flop and represent a big pocket pair? UTG bet less than 1/2 the pot so this looks a bit timid/probing. A ck-r might have (semi)bluffed the pot although it would get you pot committed and looking at all-in again.

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:ah :as :ad :8c :8d

c-bet vs 3 limpers? Check out these earlier hands from that tourney...they'll call with anything. This QQ guy in the first hand is kinda funny, watch how he slow-plays it even pf!

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t20 (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP2 (t1480)
MP3 (t1710)
CO (t1470)
Button (t2030)
SB (t1480)
BB (t1500)
UTG (t1119)
Hero (t1211)
MP1 (t1500)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with 9, 8.
UTG calls t20, Hero calls t20, 2 folds, MP3 calls t20, CO calls t20, 1 fold, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: (t120) 9, 6, 2 (6 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets t40, Hero raises to t180, MP3 calls t180, CO folds, SB folds, BB folds, UTG calls t140.

Turn: (t660) 8 (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets t220, MP3 calls t220, UTG calls t220.

River: (t1320) 4 (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets t300, MP3 calls t300, UTG calls t300.

Final Pot: t2220

Results in white below:
UTG has Qh Qs (one pair, queens).
Hero has 9h 8d (two pair, nines and eights).
MP3 has As 9d (one pair, nines).
Outcome: Hero wins t2220.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Button (t1241)
SB (t1202)
BB (t2090)
UTG (t2253)
UTG+1 (t2140)
MP1 (t2752)
MP2 (t944)
Hero (t3003)
CO (t1755)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with 6, 6.
UTG raises to t60, 3 folds, Hero calls t60, 2 folds, SB calls t45, BB calls t30.

Flop: (t240) 6, 3, K (4 players)
SB bets t90, BB calls t90, UTG calls t90, Hero raises to t2943, SB folds, BB folds, UTG calls t2103 (All-In).

Turn: (t5556) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t5556) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t5556

Results in white below:
UTG has Jh 4h (one pair, jacks).
Hero has 6s 6h (three of a kind, sixes).
Outcome: Hero wins t5556.

__________________
ICM / EV Calculator and other free poker software

Sometimes it's better to call in a situation like this rather than try to win the pot now.

Obviously the table is fairly loose, and they've created a huge pot. You have a strong hand in the SB. There's now 4 players in the pot (I'm including the BB, because all he has to do is check), and it's your turn to act.

What are your options?

1. Reraise to deny your opponents the odds to draw out and thin the field. A reraise may even pick up the pot. The player we're most worried about here is UTG. If he was limping with a big pair like AA/KK/QQ or AK looking to get reraised, we could be in some real trouble here. If he folds, we'll likely win the hand now. If he calls, we're likely to get a cascade of calls and end up in the same position playing for a huge pot.

2. Reraise all in. This could be our chance to double up on a weaker, but medium strength Ax, KQ, or any hand we're a 3:2 favorite against. If UTG was slowplaying a monster like AA/KK/QQ/AK, we're in big trouble. If he wasn't, we'll likely take down a pot that represents 20% of our current stack. If the button was calling with a pair like 55-88 and decides to race it against us, we're still a coinflip getting good overlay from the pot. I think this is a play that mostly wins the pot, loses the tournament some significant portion of the time (say 10-15%), and doubles up about the same % of the time.

3. Call getting incredible odds (9:1). This is the "small pot" way to play this hand. We'll have to play the hand OOP and carefully, but if we flop a big hand we stand to make quite a bit while risking very little. Also, the times that all undercards appear or a board like K J x comes up, we may end up getting a free card because unless someone hits the hand hard, they're unlikely to bet a medium to weak holding into such a large field or middle pair into a board with facecards.

4. Fold. If this is your option, poker may not be for you.

At a generally tight table where this many limpers is unusual, I'd likely reraise. At a very loose table where a raise is unlikely to work, I'd call and take my odds. If the blinds were about to go up and this is a generally tough table, I may reraise all in.

Remember, just because you'd like to play AQ against a single opponent, doesn't mean you're going to get to. Don't make a bad decision for the tournament by trying to force the "correct" outcome for the cards.

How Much to raise:
If we do raise as in #1, how much should we raise?

It'd be really nice to know how much we have to raise in order to give our opponents the wrong odds to call. Well, there's a simple formula for this:

Raise = Pot/(Desired opponents odds - 1)

Where:
Pot = total pot + our call of the current bet
Desired Opp Odds = their odds as expressed against 1 (e.g. 3:2 becomes 1.5:1, and we use the 1.5 portion of the expression)

So if we want our opponents to have 1.5:1 odds, making it breakeven to call with a hand like KJ, KT, 89, JT, etc, in this situation:

Raise = 1000/(1.5 - 1)
Raise = 2000

So in order to give these hands breakeven odds to call, we'd need to raise to 2,200 total (our 200 to call their bet, and raise 2200 more). Note that if we want to make this just a slight error on their part to call by giving them 1.4:1 odds, the raise goes all the way up to 2500, or 2700 total!!

But we only have 4800, so either raise above essentially commits us to the hand. What if we just wanted to deny odds to dominated hands like KQ, AJ, AT, etc. . . . . These are 2.3:1 hands

Raise = 1000/(2.3 - 1)
Raise = 1000/1.3
Raise = 769

So if we raise this to 969 total (200 for our call, 769 additional for the raise), we're giving our opponent exactly the odds he needs to call with a dominated A or KQ. So we'd ideally like to raise just a bit more than this, maybe 800 or 850 additional (to 1000 or 1050 total). (Which is exactly what we do.)

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Jason75: Ok, you check and the button bets 400. Now what?
Beavis68: You play poker.
Jason75: Darn, I was really hoping for canasta. Maybe Gin.

Analysis in general doesn't apply to the orig post b/c of stack and BB sizes. Your pf raise was 25% of your stack and that's pretty close to pot committed preflop! A c-bet on the flop IS pot committed so I can understand your reluctance to throw 'good' chips after 'bad'. Your opps are playing pretty loose for that level of the tourney and are either ignorant of M or are simply too ready to gamble with any hand no matter how it affects their stacks!

I guess this brings us back to you original question - should you just call pf? Generally I wouldn't think so but this table, the stacks and M are certainly making a good arguement for it. Jason has a lot of experieance with tourneys and understands the significants of M, getting pot committed and your position relative to ITM and I for one would be interested in his and others prospective of this type of situation.

AQ is a very good hand but it gets weaker with every limper coming in ahead of it imo. Thinning the field would make the best sense so a significant pf raise is called for but that kind of raise get you pot committed either right away or on the flop - even with a M of 16. Recognising this preflop, I'm beginning to favour the preflop all-in option more and more. Reasons being:

1. Any significant raise (pot size or larger) gets me pot committed either pf or on the flop with a c-bet.
2. There are 3 limpers and the BB all in for 200 ea = 800 in the pot so the pot is getting big already.
3. The 3 limper ahead of me have indicated weak hands so the worse case senerio is most probably a race with a pocket pair and the best case scenerio is everyone folds or calls with less tha AQ.
4. I risk getting busted but that risk is most probably less than winning the pot pre-flop - guess 70-30% in my favour.
5. All-in is only giving about 1.3:1 pot odds to BB or the first caller. A pocket pair lower than Q is only about 11-10 favorite; Ax lower than Q is 3-1 dog while only AK will put me about 3-1 dog. So only a pocket pair and AK are getting the right pot odds to call.

I wonder what Harrington would suggest?

Edit: Speaking of Jason look who posted while I was typing!

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You might want to reread my post, I completed some incomplete thoughts and fixed a couple typos . . .

Again, the way I play this hand is based on my M, how the table is playing, and what I know about UTG.

Of course, we don't want to get too results oriented here. If the reraise was appropriate to the table conditions and it just didn't work, then it just didn't work.

And given the size of the field, the very low, paired flop with a flush draw, I can't see continuation betting here, unless you're prepared to push the flop as a semibluff and hope nobody with a small overpair decides to look you up.

77/66/55/33, which is a likely holding for UTG or any of the other callers, is way out in front of us here, as is a holding like Axs/Kxs where x is a 3 or 5. As much as it sucks to stick in a big raise PF only to have to check/fold, I think we have to go that route OOP. Note that if we had reraised on the button and it checks to us on the flop, we could bet this pot allin as a semi-bluff, even into 4 other players.

For the more adventureous, a push on the flop is not out of the question. But given the fact we're going to be on the button next hand and several players will be licking their wounds from this hand (including us), I like our chances to get back into it.

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Jason75: Ok, you check and the button bets 400. Now what?
Beavis68: You play poker.
Jason75: Darn, I was really hoping for canasta. Maybe Gin.

Our hero has a M=16 (minus the SB). I normally think that with this M, I would pf raise but with the blind level @200, the more I looked at the pf all-in the more sense it made. My biggest problem was getting busted by a pocket pair of 5 or 6 :mad: :mad:

I was guessing the pf all-in would be about 70% in my favour taking pp, and likely overcards that could call into account. Only the BB could have AK imo so all other broadways cards would be significant dogs unless they were suited and caught a good flop.

Jason - how much would you lean toward all-in vs pf raise at this level (BB=200) and with M at 15-20?

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:ah :as :ad :8c :8d

I don't mean this in a cranky way, but in a "I'm still of the same mind" way when I stick to what I orginally posted:

At a generally tight table where this many limpers is unusual, I'd likely reraise. At a very loose table where a raise is unlikely to work, I'd call and take my odds. If the blinds were about to go up and this is a generally tough table, I may reraise all in.

Remember, just because you'd like to play AQ against a single opponent, doesn't mean you're going to get to. Don't make a bad decision for the tournament by trying to force the "correct" outcome for the cards.

What makes a tough table is:
1) Loose players in one or more of the 3 seats to my immediate left and in the seat to my immediate right. I have a tough time at loose tables when I have a low M. I rely on stealing blinds and being very aggressive. If I'm stuck in a very loose section of the table, I should wait for a big hand to get all their chips. But given my M I can't afford to wait, which means I'm going to have to push a more modest holding. If I'm going to play for all of my chips soon anyway, I'd rather push AQ here than QT or 55 in 3 rounds when I have fewer chips. I played at a table like this yesterday, where 4 players had a VPIP for the tourney of over 70%!!! - And they were just way ahead in chips because they kept drawing out on good hands . . . my M dwindled until I picked up KK!!! I went all in UTG, got 3 calls (I was hoping for 2 max), and sure enough one was with 77 and hit a set to knock me out.

2) An aggressive player with a big stack on my right who is coming into a lot of pots for raises. Given a larger M, I'd call or come over the top some % of the time to "tax" him (as Chris Furgeson calls it) and slow him down a bit. Given that my M is low, my options are then to call, push, or fold. Even Gus Hansen wakes up with AA/KK/QQ/AK the same % of the time I do, so I'm either going to get a fold or be in serious trouble.

Note that in the WSOP circut event in San Diego, I came over the top of just such a player 5 times in a row (not 5 hands in a row, but 5 of his raises in a row) until he finally called when I had 77, which held up against his AT. He probably had nothing the first 2 times, but he donated so many chips to me that I was now a real threat to his stack (I had 4k and he had 10K). I think my hands were something like suited connectors, small pairs, small suited aces, and then 77 ( just got a run of cards).

3) An agressive reraiser on my left with a big stack. Same reasoning as above, except now if I'm reraised with a lower M, I'm in a situation of calling off all my chips as opposed to raising all in with them (gotta win if I call, if I raise all in I have folding equity).

Table conditions like those above would probably lead me to push given an M of 12 or lower, maybe even an M as high as 15. In this particular hand.

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Jason75: Ok, you check and the button bets 400. Now what?
Beavis68: You play poker.
Jason75: Darn, I was really hoping for canasta. Maybe Gin.

I only play AQ for set value.

there is 900 in the pot your stack is 4800, I just push here.

The way you played this, I checkraise him all in on the flop.