Ok, first off, I've tried about a billion times to get the hand converter to work. Every time I paste my hand in, select the ITH forums and hit convert, I get a MS IE error that "the page could not be displayed". If anyone has any idea what I'm doing wrong, let me know.

It's more or less what has stopped me from posting my own hands up here. SO, in ultimate frustration, I'm going to paste this in the regular ugly unformatted way.

This is a hand that has continued to bother me for several weeks now. I hated how I played it, and I'd like some input. The setup is this: little $10 NL SNG, loose table with a lot of limpers (very typical). I'm in the BB, pick up AKo. There's more to tell, but I'd like folks to take a look and tell me what they think.

***** Hand History for Game 2827622585 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $10 Buy-in + $1 Entry Fee Trny:16341196 Level:2 Blinds(15/30) - Wednesday, October 05, 00:54:25 EDT 2005
Table Table 11842 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 9: tandybaby ( $1110 )
Seat 4: paddyg16 ( $865 )
Seat 2: konichiwar ( $940 )
Seat 6: jason_1975 ( $870 )
Seat 7: kenarman ( $190 )
Seat 5: Buddsaccs005 ( $795 )
Seat 1: ekim3546 ( $710 )
Seat 8: gmansallin ( $715 )
Seat 10: justforcrack ( $1805 )
Trny:16341196 Level:2
Blinds(15/30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to jason_1975 [ Ad Ks ]
kenarman folds.
gmansallin calls [30].
tandybaby raises [110].
justforcrack folds.
ekim3546 folds.
konichiwar calls [110].
paddyg16 folds.
Buddsaccs005 folds.
jason_1975 calls [80].
gmansallin calls [80].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2s, Kd, 6c ]
jason_1975 checks.
gmansallin bets [125].
tandybaby folds.
konichiwar raises [250].
jason_1975 is all-In.
gmansallin is all-In.
konichiwar calls [510].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qd ]
** Dealing River ** [ 5c ]
konichiwar shows [ Kh, As ] a pair of kings.
jason_1975 shows [ Ad, Ks ] a pair of kings.
gmansallin shows [ 2d, 2c ] three of a kind, twos.
jason_1975 wins 155 chips from side pot #1 with a pair of kings.
konichiwar wins 155 chips from side pot #1 with a pair of kings.
gmansallin wins 2270 chips from the main pot with three of a kind, twos.

I dont like flat calling , especially with your stack, I would have been all in.

I dont know if going all-in would have even made a difference, you may well of still had the same 2 callers.

Originally Posted by Av8tor009

AK is a hand that doesnt like to be against a lot of people... reraise allin before the flop

I've been taking a little flack for being too loose lately so taking a different viewpoint than the current concensus may be dangerous but IMO you played it about right and 'gmansallin' didn't! 'gmansallin' was in postion UTG+1 and not only dared to limp in with 2-2 but actually had the balls to call a raise almost 3x. That's two mistakes rewarded by a fluckey flop!

Av8tor and Beavis may be right about going all-in preflop thus forcing gmansallin to fold but I have never liked that play from the Blinds with A-K (or similar high over-cards). A-K is a great starting hand but it is not YETa made hand like a big pair (AA,KK,QQ) where a re-raise or all-in is called for. IMO the smart play with this hand (from the Blinds) is to conceal your strengh and see what the flop does for or against you. Going all-in preflop gives you no backdoor to escape the hand if you don't like the flop - such a Jh-Th-9h and you know this happen a lot!

As for this hand and gmansallin's 2-2, you got busted by a lunatic playing a dumb hand way out of position. Find out where he lives and bust his thumbs! Just kidding!

The 22 chap played it for trips and it worked.

He limped and then called for 80 to see a pot which was 330 and had great implied odds if he hit his trips. Not a brilliant initial limp but not maniacal.

I'm all in as well preflop, the pots big enough that if you take it there you are happy, and with AK you want to see all 5 cards in a Sit n Go and take the likely coinflips with the additional fold equity.

That said there's nothing wrong with your play and post flop you are pretty much doomed to be allin regardles.

I tend to be a little tighter than most because I really put a premium on the survival aspect....I know that not all agree, but it has worked very well for me. I always try to balance pot odds, vs survival importance based on the stage of the tourney....this early in a tourney I am not looking for all-ins pre-flop........unless I am holding AA or KK and someone drives me to it....then I am pretty happy to meet them in the middle.


With that said, I like the way you played this hand. I might have re-raised depending on my reads on people, but in general I am playing it exactly as you did. Once I hit my flop and see all that action in front of me, I am taking this hand all the way. If someone flopped trips....thats life.

By the way.........Was this on stars? I see you play $10 and thats where you can find me. Not sure I want to sit at your table though because we both seem to play the same game.

My first instinct here was to raise all in based on my hand, my chipstack, and my position (really crappy) to end the hand here. Being this early in the SNG however, I really felt I wasn't going to get rid of more than 1 caller, and would likely be no better than a coinflip (felt raiser came in with pocket pair or AK), so I decided to keep the pot small so I could get away from it if I had to. I want my skill advantage to play out over time and decrease my volatility. But when I first lost the hand, not reraising really bothered me.

I think I'm ok with not reraising now.

But the thing that really burns me is my check on the flop. I felt that the limper was likely holding either Aces or a small pair (most likely given the limp/call). I had a chance to make a 1/2 pot sized bet here and see how I'm doing in the hand, with a chance to get away from this pot cheaply if raised. Instead I decide to trap with TPTK (totally against my early tourney strategy), even given that I feel strongly that the limper or raiser would make a bet and then my only choice would be to make a significant (likely all-in) raise and commit me to the hand.

On the flop when the limper bet and the raiser raised, I figured one had top pair and one had something better (aces or trips), and I still pushed all my money in the middle. I really think that given the uncertainty here, I should have laid this down.

Wondering what others think of that.