Was this a good/bad/boderline semi-bluff? All opinions welcome.

[CarlSpackler]

10 person NL sng on Party, down to five players. Top 3 are in $. The blinds are at 50/100. I have no significant reads on any of the players except the big stack, who has tried to steal a couple of pots on the flop the last few hands, unsuccessfully:

UTG – 1200
Hero - 1150
CO - 1040
SB – 3800
BB – 810

UTG limps in for 100. Hero is dealt Kh Qh and calls for 100. The CO raises to 200. Both blinds fold. UTG folds. Hero calls 100. There’s 650 total in the pot.

The flop is 8h 5h 2c. Hero pushes all in with flush draw semi-bluff. I’m hoping the villain has 2 big unpaired cards and folds. If the villain has a pair of 88 or higher, I know he’ll call, but I still have a 1 out of 3 chance of making my flush, and I could also have 2 overcards (if he doesn’t have a set or QQ, KK, AA).

I would like to hear thoughts from anyone on my play here. Thanks in advance.

[SmileyEH]

Flop is fine, but don't limp for 10% of your stack. Either push all in or fold.

-SmileyEH

[Bigwig]

I agree with Smiley. Personally, with one limper, the blinds and stack sizes, I push all-in preflop.

[Bluff Daddy]

the stack sizes being the way they are would be the reason im not pushing preflop here but maybe im way off.

[tallstack]

How was the CO playing in previous hands? The min-raise behind two limpers late in a tourney, if it is out of character for his play, reeks of a trap.

I agree with the other posters that the blinds are pretty high for limping here. I would favor folding rather than pushing over the top here, but it would depend on a read of what an UTG limp means. You certainly don't want a caller if you push PF here.

If you don't have any reason to believe that the CO raise was a trap then I like the all-in semi-bluff on the flop. If you believe that the CO was setting a trap then I would have folded PF.

Dave S

[Gator]

I like the post flop push. I don't hate the preflop limp/call 100 move vs. a push. At same time, all in against limpers (at this stage in tournament) succeeds quite frequently.

The post flop move, I think, is clearly correct. My formula is X% of the time opponent folds to my all in bet and Y% of time opponent calls and I win/lose. In this case X is probably at least 50% and Y is no less then 31% (giving opponent aces) and probably much higher. By my way of thinking, this move works out for you well (in the case of a fold) or real well (in the case opponent has big pair, calls and you hit your draw) 85% of the time.

[LinusKS]

I like the limp.

I don't think you want to be all-in preflop here - not with one limper behind you and three more to act after. If you win, you're getting 250 for risking all your chips, and if you're called, you can almost guarantee whoever calls you has a better hand.

Betting 3x, on the other hand, is too much - especially with the big stack yet to act. It's going to be painful to lay it down after you've invested that much, and I think you have to be able to do that - lay it down - to make the hand work.

I don't think you mind the raise, either. It's pretty wimpy, and it got rid of competition. I'm not really sure what a min raise means here, but my best guess is that it means the CO is not very good.

I like the semi-bluff too.

I think you got a real good chance of picking up the pot there, and like you said - worst case - you still have outs. Maybe quite a few of them.

[CarlSpackler]

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I didn't push preflop, because I would have been a dog to any Ax or pocket pair who would call me, and I felt like my stack was just big enough to afford a limp here. I basically just wanted to see the flop as cheaply as possible. If I would of missed the flop, then I would of folded, and gone into push or fold mode thereafter.