Originally Posted by Cpt. Bloodclot

if i had bet out on the flop AK probably would have folded, and the flush draw would have probably just called...would people consider that a good move in order to gain information...or is it risking to much to gain to little? i suspect that against a flush draw and 3 over cards i would have been lucky to win that pot...should i have just folded preflop because i was out of position?

Ok, here's some play modifications I'd recommend. First off, you need to understand what your M is, and how your play needs to change at different M's. M is the ratio of the starting pot (SB + BB + Ante) to your stack. In this case you said you had 1,800 with a 50/100 blind. That's a starting pot of $150, so your M is 12 (1800/150). As your M gets below 20, speculative plays like limping to hit sets become very costly (and bad) plays - you need to start limiting your plays to bluffs or solid values. With an M around 12 (starting to get into the red zone), and the money nowhere yet in sight, here's the only ways I would play this hand in this situation:

1. Fold in the BB. You're out of position, facing a raise from EP and a caller. To me, calling with your fives doesn't make any sense as you're stack doesn't warrant these types of speculative plays (you'll only hit a set on the flop one time out of 7, and you don't have $2,100 to do it with by calling $300 PF raises, regardless of the implied odds, which aren't really that great because you have a lot more chips than your opponents and I never assume I'm going to get more than 1 all in call). You'll likely face a board that contains at least 2 overcards, then either have to make a probe bet (which the flush draw would have called - and should have reraised all in on in this case)
2. Push all your chips in the middle. If I hadn't played a hand in some time, this will either result in me winning the hand right now, or narrow down the field to just one other player who I'm hoping turns up two overcards. This play has a positive expectation:

1) About 50% of the time, both players will fold to you if they are not loose players or good players (they have low M's too, and should strongly consider calling your all in even though they are not pot committed, but most players simply don't because they don't understand these concepts). Besides, you can bust them and they can't bust you.
2) you'll be facing one player with overcards about 25% of the time (in my experience) and be a 55% favorite to win, and
3) 25% of the time you'll be either facing an overpair or 2 players and win about 18% of the time.

So your winning % would be:
50% win PF
25% facing overcards * 55% to win = 14%
25% facing PP or 2 callers * 18% to win = 5%
Total winning % = 69%

So overall this is a great play to make to try and vault yourself back into the tourney (the $750 pot represents 45% of your entire chip stack!). But I'd lean towards folding if you've been playing a lot of pots or the other two players have shown themselves to be loose, eager to look up other players' all-ins, or solid tourney players (which these two are clearly NOT - UTG should have clearly pushed all in PF) who will likely feel compelled to call your all in given their M's.