Did I play this right?

A couple of days ago i was playing a $5.50 single table sng on stars. We got down to about 5 handed and I was about average stack with about 15 big blinds.

I pick up AQ of diamonds second to act, and UTG limps. I raised to 4x big blind (blinds were 50/100), and limper calls (he had me outstacked by a couple hundred chips). The flop came 4 8 6 rainbow. UTG checks, so I shove my remaining 11 bb into the pot of 950. He calls and shows A6o.

Did I play this hand correctly? Should I have shoved on top of his limp or checked behind on the turn?

Welcome back to the forums Muscleman76.

With 15bb's left, open-raising is fine, although I might only raise 3x, even with the limper. The reason for this is we can c-bet smaller (since the pot is smaller), and still have some chips left behind (about 8-9bb's) if we get check-raised, or we get check-called and we do not improve on the turn. I do not like shoving 15bb's pre-flop, especially with a hand like AQ. With QQ+, sometimes JJ, you could shove, but AQ just has too much risk and not enough reward in this spot.

As played, the problem with shoving is that he is not folding a lot of his range. We can put him on a lot of small pocket pairs, say 22-88, some different connectors, like 76, T8s, etc, and random high cards like QJs and KT. Most of that range will feel comfortable continuing on this board. Also, the hands that we beat (the unpaired broadway cards) will never call here. A simple c-bet is not great either, because we have 6-7bb's left if we face any resistance. In this spot, I would rather check behind and take the free card, hoping to catch an ace or queen. If we whiff on the turn and we are checked to again, I would still check it back rather than c-bet, since he probably would have bet his pairs by now, and you're still ahead of his random high cards.

no i hate raising here with 15bb's after a limp... i shove it in preflop. its a pretty standard shove, postflop becomes difficult if we raise and get called (likely) then we miss the flop (likely) weve put ourselves in a weird situation.. his limp puts more money into the pot..

unless you have a read that this player limps with monsters then its a very easy shove. oh and did i mention he calls with worse hands.. he might fold out stuff that were likely to get value from like A10 etc buuut i still like shoving, as then, we cant really make any more mistakes in the hand.

WiZZiM said:

no i hate raising here with 15bb's after a limp... i shove it in preflop. its a pretty standard shove, postflop becomes difficult if we raise and get called (likely) then we miss the flop (likely) weve put ourselves in a weird situation.. his limp puts more money into the pot..

unless you have a read that this player limps with monsters then its a very easy shove. oh and did i mention he calls with worse hands.. he might fold out stuff that were likely to get value from like A10 etc buuut i still like shoving, as then, we cant really make any more mistakes in the hand.

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I do agree that shoving will eliminate the possibilities of making mistakes on later streets (which occurred here). It just seems like a large risk for a small reward. Perhaps if there were more players left we would not be shoving?

im shoving preflop there too. and the problem with shoving the flop there is that only a better hand will call you

He got you in his trap, with a rag Ace... it often happens, unfortunatly. I think I would have check til the river, to see if I hit something... but like cjatud2012 said, he could have only a low pp to beat you.
I'd say : risky bet !

If it were a 3 table SNG and you were already in the money, then this is an easy shove.

As is, you need a double up to cash. You had your opponent dominated before the flop and he caught that 30% chance and hit his kicker. This is bad luck in my opinion and you can console yourself by realizing he may have called an allin preflop anyway and sucked out and it wouldn't have made any difference how you played it.

I think cjatud's advice is solid and it was an unnecessary risk. You have plenty of time to wait for a noncoin flip situation and you don't necessarily have to rely on a big bluff to make the bubble...yet. The less players, the more valuable AQ becomes. If you had waited, who knows maybe two people bust out the following 2 hands and you double your buyin?

You leave out a lot of critical information that would better help us guide you in this hand. What are the betting patterns of your remaining opponents? Are they T, L, LA, TA? What hands have they revealed at showdowns? Do they play a lot of pots? Do they frequently try to steal blinds? What is your table image? Do you frequently raise? Will your raises be respected? Have you ever been allin since the tournament started? Where are the players from? Are they from poor countries where if they bust out of a 5 dollar sng they won't eat that day?

The stakes at 5.50 (cheeseburger buyin) won't guarantee that all your raises will be respected and you may be looking at a lot of gamblers who buy in and take big risks because losing 5 bucks isn't lifechanging for most people.

How was he playing? Was he in the money because he got lucky or donked out? If he is a solid player he would fold Ace rag to a shove, since it meant his tournament with only 1 BB left. If he's just donking out then I would take cjatud's advice.

WiZZiM said:

no i hate raising here with 15bb's after a limp... i shove it in preflop. its a pretty standard shove, postflop becomes difficult if we raise and get called (likely) then we miss the flop (likely) weve put ourselves in a weird situation.. his limp puts more money into the pot..

unless you have a read that this player limps with monsters then its a very easy shove. oh and did i mention he calls with worse hands.. he might fold out stuff that were likely to get value from like A10 etc buuut i still like shoving, as then, we cant really make any more mistakes in the hand.

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this ^

i would do the same think... unfortunally we play against crazy people in these kind of freerolls.. .

cjatud2012 said:

I do agree that shoving will eliminate the possibilities of making mistakes on later streets (which occurred here). It just seems like a large risk for a small reward. Perhaps if there were more players left we would not be shoving?

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well that would depend on how many players left to act behind/how loose are they etc. differant situation. large risk? perhaps, but since AQs is probably at the bottom of our range here, we are simply crushing our opponent's ranges... and with 15bb's its just such an akward stack to play postflop, shipping is the only way to go here.and since he limped, there is more dead money in the pot, making a shove better again.

lektrikguy said:

How was he playing? Was he in the money because he got lucky or donked out? If he is a solid player he would fold Ace rag to a shove, since it meant his tournament with only 1 BB left. If he's just donking out then I would take cjatud's advice.

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errr well to be honest, if hes limping in at 50/100 you can generally assume hes a horrible player, a solid player is never limping with Ace rag here.

In the future, please post the hand history.

You have 15bb and an M of 10, you should be shoving preflop. You can't cbet that missed flop due to your stack, you'll be pot committed after c betting. basically we aren't deep enough for any post flop play. Which is why with an M of 10 we are shoving preflop.

AQ is the hand of the devil,it doesn't matter how I play it (limp,call a raise or all-in) I always seem to lose more chips with it than I win

ugh, i really hate when people use "M" in SNG, it makes me want to throw up..

Your M still applies for the same reasons you stated above. When you have an M of 10 in any tourney, you are no longer deep enough for post flop play. Doesn't matter if it's an MTT or an STT. If we had the hand history for this hand and had a better idea of the stack sizes we could give better advice.

I feel like M becomes more useful when you're playing with antes, because it could look like you're in good shape in terms of bb's, but in reality there is much more urgency to get your money in, so we have the M measurement instead of the bb measurement. imo in a SNG, the bb measurement is much more indicative of how desperate you should be playing.

WiZZiM said:

ugh, i really hate when people use "M" in SNG, it makes me want to throw up..

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agreed

Easy shove preflop with that short a stack... you already have a little extra value from the limper, thats 2.5 extra blinds to add to your stack, when you're that short that counts for a lot

damours21 said:

im shoving preflop there too. and the problem with shoving the flop there is that only a better hand will call you

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Definitely not true.
I've seen donks in low buy in sit n gos limp in early position in that kind of situation then just call an all in raise with all sorts of weird hands A rag, QJ, J10 etc

The problem is here is that your stackfeels a bit big to just shove with but if you make a raise to 4BB then get flat called 2 out of 3 times you miss the flop and are then stuck in no mans land, having to guess whether hes hit any of the flop.
So I think going all in preflop is the best option here.

im no pro, but i would've either pushed it preflop or made a 1/2 potsize raise after the flop. if he calls the raise i pretty much start thinking he's got me beat one way or the other and i'll probably check till the end. this leaves me about half of the stack i started the hand with so i could possibly catch a better hand to make the paid places

i would have pushed it all in preflop too. tho you had bad luck, but anyway on that board i would have chacked back, or make a 1/2 pot bet.

I have to agree with wizzim that you push all in preflop. Makes the hand a lot easier to play.