Help! Should i have folded?

Hi Guys

I'm new to the community so first post here.

I played in my local poker league yesterday (micro stakes) and i made a certain play and i just cant figure out if what i did was good or bad, its been driving me mad.

So we are getting to the bubble (2 tables) and i'm probably 4th in chip stack. 8 positions pay and about 12 remaining. The blinds are 500/1000 and i have about 22k. I pick up AJo in mid position. Action folds to me and out of the remaining 3 players yet to play 2 of them are short stacked so i simply call to try and induce an all in.

One short stack folds but the small blind, the chip leader now goes all in. The other short stack, the big blind promptly folds. I ask him if it was a raise or an all in as he didn't move all his chips in, just a few, and i couldn't hear him. He now looks a bit nervous.

I put him on a weaker hand than mine and call.

I show AJo and he shows A9o.

He flops the 9 and wins the hand and i'm eliminated.

So it looks like a bad beat but the thing is i was outplaying most of the opposition and there were a lot of short stacks. If my read was wrong i could have been dead. Almost certainly beat by AA, KK, QQ, JJ and flipping for any other pair. Also beat by AK and AQ.

So was it an unnecessary risk, should i have folded? Should i have raised instead of flat called? Or did i actually play the hand perfectly, inducing the all in and being a 3/1 favourite to win, just suffer a bad beat?

Hope you can help its been in my head all day!

me personally i would have just shoved the 22 bigs makes it harder for them to just call or shove over the top and you pick up the blinds barring them all folding ,i do not like just a call with AJ puts you in a tougher position when they make a move in which case it did all in all just unlucky mate

Your first mistake was limping...even if yyou didnt shove u should have at least 2 or 3 bet it...by calling you make him think your hand may be weak and gives him the thought " i can shove and he will fold"...if u 3bet....and he calls, flop comes no ace no jack u can fold and still live to see another... By limping you showed weakness and then got put in a tough spot..u didnt make a bad call honestly imo u had him dominated preflop and the cards fell out of your favor ya know...nothin u can do about that. But maybe next time bet harder in that spot and u might be able to take the blinds down before any community cards come out...i say u did fine bro..u got bad beat...


If it was me i would of 3 bet hoping for all folders or low stack shove...then if a big stack shoved behind my 3 bet i would fold AJ just cuz i hate AJ i have bad luck w that hand haha


Tl;dr: U did fine imo...be more aggressive maybe next time

Don’t limp, fold to the all in.

I would be folding this. The BB with all the chips knows that you can't be calling with much and therefore he can shove very wide on you. You limping is just a donation

Limping was obviously a mistake, you got unlucky with the nine on the flop but you could have avoided the spot with making a 2.5BB bet with that hand. AJo is a good hand but it isn't necessarily great and I don't think calling hoping to get shoved into is a good strategy for this hand, especially considering you're likely getting shoved into by something other than absolute trash,

I would've went all-in or folded so the chipleader doesn't bully us around with a weaker hand or to get us to fold the better hand preflop, But sucked that he hit the 3 outer on you nothing you can do besides learing for next time what to do.