Okay, here's the situation.

Pot is 24 preflop (3 limpers for 8) I have 45d and am acting first. We're down to five players in the 50 man tourney, and I am the big stack (had about 170 in chips ... one player not in this hand was close)

Flop come 359r. I have been making a lot of bets and picking up pots (and playing unconventional cards but now showing many down except for nuts somehow), so I keep with it and lead out for 12 (maybe not the best play with 2 to act, but that's another question)

The limper in CO folds, and the button pushes all in for another 52. Now, with my pair of 5's, this seems like an obvious fold, live and fight another day. But I decided to think about it for a minute and try and figure things out.

First I asked him to count his chips, and noticed that his hands were shaking pretty bad and his voice was a little shaky... tells I hadn't seen from this player before. I know he bets his big hands pre-flop, so an objectively strong hand like a big pair seems unlikely, but I haven't seen him bluff either (or at least caught him doing it lol).

Another factor in figuring out if my pair was any good was that the pot before (maybe 2 before) he had called bets of 12 on the flop and 20 on the turn with A high to collect a pot when I was trying to pickup the pot. This made me think he may be tired of my bullying him, and people are a lot more likely to make a play back at me in that case (I love it when I actually have a big holding in that case).

I figured the odds were about 2/3 that he had a hand like A9 that was weak but better then mine, and about 1/3 that he was on an outright bluff with overcards. Figuring I'd take 10% when he wasn't bluffing but I hit my outs, and he'd take 10% even if he WAS bluffing with overcards, I made my chances in the hand at about 35%. The pot was offering 2-1, and a win here would have eliminated him (and the last stack only had maybe 15 chips, so it would have guaranteed the money.) I figured a call was a slight EV move in simple value, and a big one in tournament equity. So I called.

Was my reasoning right here? Or should I just lay down my little pair in this case. The result here isn't important... just getting thoughts for these kind of situations in the future.

My biggest problem is that tell.

If could mean a ton of things.

1. Oh please don't call.

2. Oh please call and don't suck out on me A-9, 99, 33.

But with 1.

He could have something like T9 or 66-88. And what ever he has, he has two over cards to you. so he has 6 outs to bust you. This is interesting, you are about a 3.5:1 favorite over just overcards, and better than 1:2 against a higher pair, so yeah, the call is probably good.

As a random note, when I input possible hands into pokerstove that he may have had, and only include AK and AQ as possible bluffing hands, it has me at 36%.

( any pair except 2 and 4, any Nine with a higher kicker, plus AK and AQ)

On his tell, shakiness is supposed to usually mean extreme strength. But I have played with this guy quite a lot before (he makes a lot of final tables in these tourneys as well) and never seen it... so I put it down as out of character. Maybe I was seing what I wanted to see

to answer the question, you were right... I figured out later that his tell was because he limped pocket A's which he never does, and was afraid that he was going to pay for it. I figured he was making a play that he didn't normally make... but I thought there was a good chance that that was an all-in bluff against an agressive big stack.

In the long run of this tourney, it basically evened three of us out around 100 chips, and after we blinded out the little stack, I was the next to go. Because of this hand? I don't know actually... I got sick of playing (small prizes, I use these solely to work on my game and 2:00 when you have to get up at 6:00 for work is a long tourney) and decided I was going big with any ace and any pair.... bet 30 preflop and pushed on a low board with Ax and ran into a set I don't think it was my stack's pain so much as the 50 free chips I gave a small stack that was the problem.

Over several times though, I think this call may be correct if you think there's a good chance he's bluffing and didn't have a good reason to suspect strength... AND had a big enough stack that it wouldn't hurt you overly much