Could I have Played This Better?

As per thread title, just curious, as I could have re-raised to 8bb's leaving me about 32 after the flop, caught what I needed, and may have been able to push out the SB after that flop. My thinking was i wanted to isolate and didn't want the larger stack in there.

No Limit Hold'em Tournament T15/T30
Buy-in: $4.10+$0.40 USD Hold'em No Limit
PokerStars
8 players

Stacks:
UTG - Hero (T1,269)
UTG+1 - UTG+1 (T1,338)
MP - MP (T585)
MP2 - MP2 (T3,449)
CO - CO (T1,428)
BTN - BTN (T750)
SB - SB (T1,320)
BB - BB (T3,105)

Preflop: (T77, 8 players) Hero is UTG with K♠A♠
Hero calls T30, 5 folds, SB raises to T120, BB calls T90, Hero raises to T1,265 (all-in), SB raises to T1,316 (all-in), 1 fold, Uncalled bet of T51 returned to SB

Flop: J♣K♦5♥ (T2,682, 2 players, 1 all-in - SB: T51, Hero: T0)

Turn: T♥ (T2,682, 2 players, 1 all-in - SB: T51, Hero: T0)

River: 5♣ (T2,682, 2 players, 1 all-in - SB: T51, Hero: T0)

Total Pot: T2,682
SB shows T♦T♠ (a full house, Tens full of Fives)
Hero shows K♠A♠ (two pair, Kings and Fives)

SB wins T2,682

Had you called sb's raise, you might have picked it up on the flop. Same if you had raised 3Xish rather than all in preflop. There was really no reason to raise 10X when you had AK in position.

Had you called or 4bet a reasonable amount, then you bet or shove respectively with this flop. SB missed his set with two over cards. He probably folds to a good bet.

Was this a SNG?

Either way, I think you are overjamming here. I'd prefer a 3-bet size much smaller, or just a smooth call (depending on the table dynamic/reads). I think it's too early to just jam like this with 42BB. Are you uncomfortable with post flop play?

1st of all, why open limp AK here under the gun?

As played, I rarely fold AK preflop unless villain only has AA and KK in there range.

Open raise 2.5-3x, and feel free to just call or 4-bet all-in if villain 3-bets, depending on your read on the player. If the player is loose and aggressive, go ahead and shove, if the player is tight or unknown just call and try and peel an A or K

Yeah and I don't understanding why we're open limping AKs UTG and then jaming 40BB's. I mean everyone at the table knows you have AK.

We have AKs, we're top 16 combo's here - just raise. If he 3-bets you with TT, and I say if because he should be at least considering flatting an UTG open, you can 4-bet or even flat. Generally, I like 4-bet, but can get behind an AK, suited only, flat for balance (more on that at another time).

A good 4-bet should be about 20BB's, nominally. Since that's going to be greater than 33% of our stack, we can jam 4bet; but that's after we've opened raised - very important distinction. If his 3bet is small enough, we can 4bet less than all in, say $400 for value and to protect our range.

Bottom line, you have the nuts here, we don't want villain to fold and we want to get as much money in the middle as possible (while making sense) otherwise our opponents can call hands like TT knowing that they're never facing AA or KK.

SIRREAPER said:

As per thread title, just curious, as I could have re-raised to 8bb's leaving me about 32 after the flop, caught what I needed, and may have been able to push out the SB after that flop. My thinking was i wanted to isolate and didn't want the larger stack in there.

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I think it is fine to shove ~40bb in this spot. Probably OK to do this for value with QQ+ and as a bluff with AKs (is that really a bluff ? I don't know) and maybe AQs.

What I don't like is the limp under the gun. The limp doesn't look like your plan was to isolate. Were you limping to induce?

SB raised 4x so I think a 3bet would need to go 9x-12x - which might have caused SB to 5bet jam and ended in the same result anyway.

What range do you put the SB on when he raises.
I think TT-AA, AK-AQ is a good start. You therefore are shoving into a big pair with a big drawing hand. The only pocket you beat is AQ. I'm never happy doing that.
I have a big sign in front of me so I remember.
THINK IN RANGES!
Still sometimes I fail to do so, but it helps when you remember.

No reason to limp here UTG with AK. You should raise 3x here. It would have folded to the small blind which may have called or they may have 3 bet. If they 3 bet you can then either call or 4 bet. I prefer a call there as you would have position and you have a hand that flops well but is not made yet. With that line on the flop you could call or raise depending on what villain does. They might even check to you here and you would then most likely bet them off the hand.

Definitely could have been played better as a limp and jam over is not a good play. Unless he is a bad player he is not calling your jam with anything you beat.

Hi
I think you played really well, if you would have won that hand, all would agree you played right.
Just bcoz you lost, others feel you should have played otherwise.
This is my opinion and I maybe wrong.

Thanks for the responses, varied as I would expect. For clarity, yes this was a sit and go, and yes I was limping in to trap an aggressive player with a re-raise and hopefully a fold.

half of us would probably play the same way.

SIRREAPER said:

Thanks for the responses, varied as I would expect. For clarity, yes this was a sit and go, and yes I was limping in to trap an aggressive player with a re-raise and hopefully a fold.

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Just raise man.... don't over-complicate things.

pretty much a fair hand. u should bet more they already knew i guess u got a strong hand xD

SIRREAPER said:

Thanks for the responses, varied as I would expect. For clarity, yes this was a sit and go, and yes I was limping in to trap an aggressive player with a re-raise and hopefully a fold.

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The problem with limping UTG with premium hands to trap players is that it’s easily exploitable. As soon as someone knows you do that from time to time (and they will know soon enough, especially as a regular SNG player), they pretty much can see that you’ve turned your cards face up. They’ll fold all the hands you wished had called, and call with all the hands you don’t want to see.

You can’t even use it as a bluff after you’ve used it with premium hands. They’ll see you limp and won’t re raise you, knowing you’ll 4-bet your premium. Now you’re sitting there out of position with 98s, having hoped to steal the pot with a 4-bet but now just looking very weak in your play.

This illustrates the idea that you should be playing your monster hands the same way you should be playing your bluffs/suited connectors. It disguises your play tremendously, thus confusing your opponents, causing them to make mistakes to your benefit.

If he raise aleady 3BB ) why you didn't just call to see the flop, and if the flop was J♣K♦5♥.
It's really hard to fold such of strong hand ) top pair, and top kicker , even if you just call , and in the flop he continue to betting, anyway its very hard to fold, this hand, but you can do this if you feeling something is bad, and if you feeling you want to play more, and to find a better situation to put your stack ALL-IN.
It's just a bad beat bro continue playing, this is poker.

royalburrito24 said:

The problem with limping UTG with premium hands to trap players is that it’s easily exploitable. As soon as someone knows you do that from time to time (and they will know soon enough, especially as a regular SNG player), they pretty much can see that you’ve turned your cards face up. They’ll fold all the hands you wished had called, and call with all the hands you don’t want to see.

You can’t even use it as a bluff after you’ve used it with premium hands. They’ll see you limp and won’t re raise you, knowing you’ll 4-bet your premium. Now you’re sitting there out of position with 98s, having hoped to steal the pot with a 4-bet but now just looking very weak in your play.

This illustrates the idea that you should be playing your monster hands the same way you should be playing your bluffs/suited connectors. It disguises your play tremendously, thus confusing your opponents, causing them to make mistakes to your benefit.

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It's interesting, because in this very thread there are many different views on this type of play. I recall reading about this type of play from Dan Harrington many years back (Harrington on Hold'em volume 2 I believe) where he described taking hands like these and if his second hand on his watch was between the 9 & 12 position representing about 25% of the time (although I believe it was a little less, likely closer to 15% of the time) he would make exactly this type of play to be exactly what you said....unpredictable. Different strokes for different folks I suppose right?

Thanks for the comment.

Limping why?
Shoving why?
It was a perfectly good hand to raise and see a flop.
dangerous though because had you called, and the flop come, and he either checked or raised and you either raised or 3bet, and he saw the turn, it would be a very difficult fold.

I wouldn’t like the flop so much myself not having any suitmess to my AKs.

SIRREAPER said:

It's interesting, because in this very thread there are many different views on this type of play. I recall reading about this type of play from Dan Harrington many years back (Harrington on Hold'em volume 2 I believe) where he described taking hands like these and if his second hand on his watch was between the 9 & 12 position representing about 25% of the time (although I believe it was a little less, likely closer to 15% of the time) he would make exactly this type of play to be exactly what you said....unpredictable. Different strokes for different folks I suppose right?

Thanks for the comment.

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Many would file the play under the “fancy play syndrome” category. If someone has a hand they’re willing to go all in with, it’ll get in either way, whether you limped or open raised.

I’d rather take down the pot Preflop with my open raise rather than risking a 5 way limped pot with a premium hand.

It is unlikely to get a hand to go all in with you that wouldn’t have gotten it in had you just open raised.

I’m not completely against the play, but I’ve considered it over the years many times, and always arrived at the same conclusions.

Then again, I never ever limp into a pot, unless I’ve got a decent hand on the BTN and I’ve got a strong loose and aggressive read on a player in the blinds who would likely try to punish my limp with a short stack shove with an incredibly wide range. Obviously you would only limp a hand in this situation if you’re willing to call the shove.