Absurd limp in $500 Steps - what would you do?

[curtains]

***** Hand History for Game 1504746903 *****
NL Hold'em $500 Buy-in + $35 Entry Fee Trny:9065145 Level:6 Blinds(150/300) - Friday, January 28, 13:42:30 EDT 2005
Table Step 4 #983568 (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 4: ChinnyQ ( $1850 )
Seat 5: FateOrKarma ( $1390 )
Seat 2: curtainz ( $1375 )
Seat 3: dedheadsteve ( $1090 )
Seat 8: CK_CKRUEL ( $4295 )
Trny:9065145 Level:6
Blinds(150/300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to curtainz [ Ac Qd ]
dedheadsteve calls [300].
ChinnyQ folds.
FateOrKarma folds.
CK_CKRUEL folds.



Question 1 - your turn, what do you do?-


Question 2 - If you check and the flop comes Q high, what do you do?


Dont forget the rules of a step 4 event are that the top 4 qualify for step 5 ($1065) and 5th place gets another step 4 buyin ($535)

[danng721]

I'd check and push a non scary A-high or Q-high flop.

I originally thought pushing was a good move since you have him covered and at worst will repeat the step, but I dunno. I'm too lazy to calculate the EV. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[adanthar]

Depends roughly 100% on this guy's play to date but I check in any event.

[curtains]

Im mostly asking about the postflop situation on q-high flop. I checked preflop.

[willie24]

I've never played steps, and this is the first i've even heard of it, so I have no real credibility here.

but my question is- why wouldn't you push? AQ is a hell of a hand. would dedhead ever call a push with a hand he limped with? what does his limp mean? certainly it would be wrong to limp with AA,KK,QQ in this type of game/situation. so the chances of you folding him out with a push have got to be near 100% right? so then, why don't you push? even if you are called you have a good chance to eliminate him.

clue me in.

[willie24]

OK- i'm starting to get it after rereading your post. it will be hard to fold him with a push because the pot is 750 and that's more than what he has left.

i see now the difficulty of your situation. if you check, what if you miss the flop. what is your plan? check-fold? i guess that wouldn't be terrible if you think you can outlast the other low stacks. this is a very very interesting post and i would love to see some more analysis from someone who knows this game.

my guess is that a check preflop is correct and that you should push any top pair postflop, but I'm not sure. there is no reason for any player to blind steal so you could concievably fold every hand the rest of the way and have probably a 70% chance of "winning," just waiting for the blinds to go up and someone to get unlucky with the first forced allin. i can't imagine that a big stack would bother to play any hand from here on out.

great post.

[morgan180]

[ QUOTE ]
clue me in.

[/ QUOTE ]

you should have alarms going off in your head at a 500 SNG when a player has a chip stack of $1000 and limps in to a pot with a big blind of 300 - a full 1/3 of his stack.

If a short stack is looking to pick up blinds they push - if a short stack is looking for action with a monster they limp or min raise.

So a push by the short stack would most likely be a blind steal attempt that they don't want to play after the flop and want to take down the 450 right there. This limp however screams "I want a lot of action, preferably a raise, so I can reraise allin."

even if you check and hit the Q or A you could be way behind
JMHO

[betgo]

I would normally be allin with AQ with these stacks no matter what.

I asume the reason he flat called and isn't sure whether to push with top pair is that he is afraid the strange limp reflects a big pocket pair.