Is it a bad idea to attempt a steal when there's an early-position limper in the pot?

So, one of the big things I'm trying to learn right now is how to consistently steal and resteal when an opportunity presents itself. This particular spot I'm not sure if I made the right move or if I should've just folded.

I'm in a 9-man $0.60 turbo SnG which is down to 6 players, blinds are 200/100, and UTG2 limps in for 200 (he has 18BB). CU folds to me with 96os on the button with 6BB. There's 500 in the pot which represents 40% of my stack and I decide to shove all in hoping to steal it. SB folds, BB calls the all-in, which I didn't mind since he was the short stack (3BB) and needed a double-up, and the UTG2 limper snap-calls with QQ, and I go out in 5th.

Wondering if I made a bad move here attempting to steal the blinds with a limper in the pot. I was assuming that UTG2 was weak since he limped from early position, thinking if he had a premium hand he would undoubtedly raise from that spot. Should I have folded? Did I make a horrible play here?

It's situational. Shoving over chronic limpers is a valid strategy, especially when the blinds are high enough that stealing the blinds plus a limper or two is a significant percentage of your stack. Fold equity is important however -- the less fold equity you have the more showdown equity you need to do this successfully.

I think in this case with 96o, a very short BB that's likely to shove any overcards leaving you a dog to lose half your stack, and having little fold equity against the big stack limper (especially given the price if BB calls), I could have found a fold and looked for a better spot. Being OTB you've got 5 more hands to pick up something better and/or open-shove with first-in vig.

That said, I don't hate the play if you had any sort of read that the BB and UTG were at all nitty (don't know how many nits you'll find at 60c SNGs tho). At least you didn't limp/fold with 6bb. Of course I love seeing fish do that, I just can't understand how they fail to see how lolbad it is.

Yeah, the dude was playing a solid TAG game up to that point, and my read on him was that he was holding something marginal like 67s or pocket 4's and wanted to see a cheap flop; he had the stack to merit that kind of play. I basically went with my gut on this one and ran smack into a monster.

So I'm split on whether or not I did the right thing. I probably could have folded, but I was constantly worried about being blinded out. There's no guarantee that I would've gotten even a marginal hand to lay it all on the line with, and the dead money in the pot relative to my stack made the steal attempt enticing.

Not sure how many TAG's are limping small sc's UTG2, and considering he limped QQ it makes him pretty bad unless he was trying to induce a shove from one of you shorties (in which case he succeeded). Also being a bigger stack he has a lot of assumed fold equity to raise up even his small pp's which he could fold to a 3bet from a bigger stack or call against one of you shorties.

dmorris68 said:

Being OTB you've got 4 more hands before the blinds hit to pick up something better and/or open-shove with first-in vig.

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FMP

speaking from my experience in tournament play, in this situation a limp from early position is really suspicious---why? because there is one player with only 3bb and you with 6bb. It was a strong play because he anticipated that the small stacks would try a steal and would never limp in with so small of a stack. I have been late in many tournaments where the blinds are super high and someone randomly limps in, someone shoves over them and then they show AA or KK.