A Hand That's Been Eating at Me

Was this played well, or just a bad beat? Your opinions please...

Hand #142419C2FF000077: $5 NL Hold'em
Seat 2: CPAISH (3135.00 in chips)
Seat 3: LuvSak (2950.00 in chips)
Seat 4: DonkeyDonk (1685.00 in chips)
Seat 6: Vladlen (1765.00 in chips)
Seat 9: GrindTheCake (5465.00 in chips)
DonkeyDonk: posts small blind $100
Vladlen: posts big blind $200
Dealt to GrindTheCake [ Kd Ah ]
GrindTheCake: calls
CPAISH: folds
LuvSak: calls
DonkeyDonk: calls
Vladlen: checks
@@@ F_L_O_P @@@ [ Qd 4c Kc ]
DonkeyDonk: checks
Vladlen: is all in 1565.0000
GrindTheCake: is all in 5265.0000
LuvSak: is all in 2750.0000
DonkeyDonk: folds
GrindTheCake: returns uncalled bet $2,515
*** TURN *** [ 7c ]
*** RIVER *** [ Qs ]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
LuvSak wins $2,370 with Flush, Ace high
*** SHOW DOWN ***
LuvSak wins $5,495 with Flush, Ace high

I ended up finishing in 4th (not ITM) going all-in short-stacked with KJo with a K on the flop. Villain had 2 pair :evil:

Which part of limping AKo UTG did you think was the well played part?

LOL. You know, I just read over the hand before reading your reply and I realized I limped in. Nice donk move on my part. I deserved it to a degree, yet the Villain holding ATs would have called my raise any way, he had been playing semi-loose all game long and getting lucky. Ugh...

*yawn*

The hand is fine. Probably should have raised it pre-flop, but the scope of that discussion is bigger than this hand.

I don't mind the UTG limp. AKo TPTK is almost the nuts at this point in a tourney.

Anyway. You didn't make any mistakes in this hand IMO.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ragnar4

I don't mind the UTG limp.

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Ummm, why is this? Is this with the intention of limp/re-raising AI? I would just make a standard raise and go from there.

Postflop is played fine, AK TPTK is very often the nuts at this point in the tourney.

I agree taipan that 95% of the time I'm making a standard raise... But you're obviously limp/re-raising AI. AK plays better AI PF in most cases.

But I honestly feel that limping will cause people to try to squeeze with worse hands, and may encourage a shove that is easily callable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ragnar4

I agree taipan that 95% of the time I'm making a standard raise... But you're obviously limp/re-raising AI. AK plays better AI PF in most cases.

But I honestly feel that limping will cause people to try to squeeze with worse hands, and may encourage a shove that is easily callable.

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Don't forget that $5.50 SNG opps tend to be loose/passive meaning that they won't necessarily shove AI preflop. What happens if you get three callers and then miss the flop? You've lost a lot of the value of your AK.

When you're playing $5.50 SNGs my advice would be to play ABC, there's no need for tricky play.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by taipan168

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ragnar4

I agree taipan that 95% of the time I'm making a standard raise... But you're obviously limp/re-raising AI. AK plays better AI PF in most cases.

But I honestly feel that limping will cause people to try to squeeze with worse hands, and may encourage a shove that is easily callable.

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Don't forget that $5.50 SNG opps tend to be loose/passive meaning that they won't necessarily shove AI preflop. What happens if you get three callers and then miss the flop? You've lost a lot of the value of your AK.

When you're playing $5.50 SNGs my advice would be to play ABC, there's no need for tricky play.

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This is exactly the reason for the limp. Loose calling stations are going to see the flop with any decent hole cards... and by decent for them I mean J9o or Ax, etc.

I think If I had to do it all over again, I would have raised pre-flop, but I'm still shoving at that flop in that point of the tourney.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grinder

Quote:

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Originally Posted by taipan168

Don't forget that $5.50 SNG opps tend to be loose/passive meaning that they won't necessarily shove AI preflop. What happens if you get three callers and then miss the flop? You've lost a lot of the value of your AK.

When you're playing $5.50 SNGs my advice would be to play ABC, there's no need for tricky play.

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This is exactly the reason for the limp. Loose calling stations are going to see the flop with any decent hole cards... and by decent for them I mean J9o or Ax, etc.

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Your logic is backwards. When you have AK, you ideally would like to get HU on the flop because:

a) if you miss the flop and you are up against only one opp, a continuation bet is more likely to be successful than if you're against multiple opps

b) even if you flop an A or K, you have to worry about having let somebody see a relatively cheap flop to beat you with something like a BB special two pair.

For this reason, I would raise it preflop every time. If you had AA and there was a particularly aggressive player still to act you might limp with the intention of limp/re-raising - but at a $5.50 tourney I would probably raise that too.

Hmm... makes sense.

I don't mind limping UTG early on in a SNG w/ AK but with blinds this big i think a raise is pretty standard.

My point when I asked about it wasnt that limping AK is by itself bad, but unless you have a reason/plan behind doing it, it probably is.