$Freeroll NLHE MTT: Early elimination from the tournament with overpair

[Zirkzee]

Early stage of a tournament and my stack was about 30 big blinds. 50/100 were the blinds. I was in the button holding JJ. 3 opponents called before me. I raised to 300. All three called. The flop was 5d4d10c. So I had an overpair. One opponent checked, another opponent made a pot-sized donkbet and another folded. If I called, I'd only have 700 chips left. Therefore, in my opinion, I would have been pot comitted after a call. So it was clear that I would either fold or reraise all in. I asked myself what my opponent could have. AT, KT or QT would be possible because he wanted to protect his hand with a high donkbet. Flush draw would be unusual as he wouldn't have bet that high. With drawing hands he wants to see the next card cheaply. With a set he would have played check-raise. I excluded QQ + because he would have raised preflop. He would have either raised open or 3-betted me. So I decided to reraise all in. He called and had two pairs with 45 and finally won the pot. He had a 75% chance of winning post-flop. Now to my question: Should one perhaps avoid the risk in the early phase of the tournament, because I already had a bad feeling about the hand. And let's say I had more chips, how would I have played the hand then?

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
When 3 players have limped, you need to make it 6-7BB to go and not just 3BB. When you make it so small, you are going to get a cascade of callers, and this is not, what you want, when you isolate limpers. Ideally you want to get just one or at most two callers, and its also totally fine, if they all fold. Their is 5,5BB in the middle already, and picking up all those dead chips is an absolutely acceptable outcome.

Flop
As played I am also stacking off JJ on this flop even against 3 opponents. The only reasonable 2 pair combo is 54, and he might also be donk betting top pair or some kind of draw, of which there are many available.

Results
So he had the good old 54, and you did not improve. This boils back to preflop, because if you size properly, then 54 most likely go away. And if he still comes along, then at least you have cut down on his implied odds, and you win more, when he miss the flop.

 

[Joe]

What fundiver said!

When you have three limpers in front of you and you then make it 3x from the button, you're pricing everyone in to call with speculative hands.

If you factor the limpers into your raise, those types of hands usually go away.

With JJ specifically (but also any big hand) you really don't want to go to the flop cheaply against five opponents..

In this position, everyone else still in the hand is invested, either 1bb or 0.5bb..

So when you make it 3x, four of them only have to call 2bb to play for 7.5bb+, the fifth only needs to call 2.5bb.

That's pretty good pots odd to peel a flop with speculative holdings five or six-handed.

If it had folded to you, 3x would be fine, but with those limpers, fundiver hit the nail on the head- 6-7bb is a much better sizing in this situation.

That will get rid of most speculative hands, charge two over-card type hands to draw and get value from smaller pairs.

 

[Badday94]

I agree with fundiver. A bigger raise preflop would have been the way in this situation. I got eliminated the same way recently, I had pocket aces, everyone folded before me, I made a 4 Bb raise preflop, got called by button with 8 7 offsuite because he had a pretty big stack, he made 2 pair on the flop and I was out. It was a big tournament also, in which I qualified from 2 freerolls back to back. Unlucky for me nobody raised before me so I can make a big raise preflop, something you had the opportunity to do

 

[300HPGOD]

I will add that depending on actual stack size here (meaning I will treat 27 BBs as different than 35 BBs) I would think about just jamming here pre flop. Also need to consider if this is a turbo or not or also if the blinds will be increasing soon. If the blind level was 75/150 I would not hesitate to be jamming here so if the level will soon be that in a minute or so you can effectively consider yourself at that level and rip it.

As others have said raising is also fine but it needs to be large as was mentioned. I would make 7BBs the smallest I would raise over 3 limpers on this stack size with 3 limpers since I would be going with this hand a lot here post flop so I do think it is better here to jam it. Especially in a freeroll where we can get called by a lot worse.

As you played it, I think its a no doubt get it in spot. Easily could be going against 10x in a freeroll there.