$Freeroll NLHE MTT: Hand #2 CC League: AJo from the Small Blind

[nabmom]

Next hand from Monday's league game. I have about 1,000 hands on the opponent who seems to play a bit loose and passive, and a little bit sticky on flop/turn. They have a pretty low call to a 2-bet (about 8%) from middle position (sample size of 75). I totally miss the flop, but figure it's a board that likely missed them as well, so I c-bet.

Questions:
Was it worth it to raise from the SB, or just limp? I figure out of position I wanted to show some aggression and thought I had a good chance to get a fold here.

Once I was called, was c-betting the right move? The board likely missed me as well, so maybe I should have been more passive?

Clearly I'm folding to the 3-bet!


PokerStars - 50/100 Ante 12 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP+1: 2,673
CO: 3,944
BTN: 2,786
Hero (SB): 1,699
BB: 7,116
UTG: 3,535
UTG+1: 3,064
MP: 2,183

8 players post ante of 12, Hero posts SB 50, BB posts BB 100

Pre Flop: (pot: 246) Hero has A♠ J♥

fold, fold, MP calls 100, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 300, fold, MP calls 200

Flop: (796, 2 players) Q♥ Q♦ 4♥
Hero bets 398, MP raises to 1,871 and is all-in, fold

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
With 17BB I am certainly not opening into the chip leader. Unless he is a really bad player, you are just opening the door for him to abuse you in a multitude of different ways. First off all he can jam on you preflop, which will force you to fold most of your range, and then you just lost almost 20% of your stack for nothing.

With AJ you can call him off, but you have a ton of other hands as well, that you dont want to just fold and give him a walk. And by also limping a hand like AJ, you protect the weaker part of your range. You can also limp-jam, if he comes in for a small raise, which is way better than calling off, because you dont really want to be flipping for your tournament life with AJ.

Flop
It also sucks, when he just call you, because now you are stuck out of position in a 2 SPR pot with a hand, that will miss most flops, and once again he can just own you. Which is exactly, what happened here. You made a C-bet, which I dont really love. Yes he have missed a lot on this board, but unless he is a moron, then he know, that you have also missed a lot, and he can afford to risk some chips on a bluff, which you can not. I am not convinced, he had the best hand here. But then again what are you going to do? Call it off for your tournament life with AJ high just hoping to catch the guy bluffing? It does not sound like a great idea to me, so I would also have folded.

 

[300HPGOD]

With a hand as strong as AJ, a limper in front of you, and 17 BBs I would be jamming pre flop here. I dont want to just limp and let the large stack BB either call behind in position or raise me and put us in a weird spot so the best play on this short of a stack is to put it in. I can see some times if you think BB is an aggressive player to just flat here and try to induce a raise that we would be jamming over but that again would need assurance that most likely the BB is raising. If they wound up limping behind this would be a tough pot to play 3 ways.

As played on the flop I would not lead that flop since villain might believe even with a flush draw out there that I would never lead a Qx here (not saying I never would but trying to think how villain would perceive the bet) since I would be afraid of a fold. Villain might believe I would be checking here to let them bluff at the hand. If I played this hand in this way, which I would not have, I think I would be check jamming on this flop and making the player who limped in the pot have a Q. They could of course have some hand like 66 that they would call me with but I think I would be going with it. If after I checked villain bet large enough where there is no fold equity from my jam I guess I would fold. Again, I think this hand plays a lot better and easier as a jam pre flop. You just have no maneuverability post flop if you raise small pre as you did and get called.

 

[fundiver199]

I failed to notice, there was a limper in the pot. In that case I am also jamming from SB with a 17BB effective stack.

 

[nabmom]

Question about jamming here. In a "normal" tournament I probably would jam with this hand. But in league, where those position points are so critical, is it worth the risk?

Or is my thinking here flawed, because the correct move is the same even in the context of league?

 

[Badday94]

This is a shove preflop. The fold was good, I believe he had a queen and he hoped you would call with a flush draw. Or he had nothing but how do you call for tournament life with ace high. Also if you don't shove, your raise was better than just a limp and if the big blind wanted to abuse you and 4 bet preflop and put you all in, no problem, easy call with A J.

 

[kkonicke]

I'm definitely jamming preflop as well. Even without the limper I think you can get away with jamming 17 bb to steal bb.

As played, on the flop I would check for sure. A very small bet like 20 percent I don't think is terrible, but a bet is very likely to induce a jam as happened. As played, I think I would fold here. I have a hard time believing he's confident he could fold out ace high hands considering how much of your stack is invested. I also would play qx this way if I was him as I would expect hands like aj to continue.

 

[liviuplayspoker]

With 17bb you could also jam, its also better because you would If He 4bets you and you want to get a fold preflop i think