First Vegas Tourn-.Vegas Poker sure is different (pt 2 of ?)

[Acesover8s]

Been in vegas for two hours. Just finished playing in the tightest 10-20 of my life, then Mirage 7pm tuesday tourney starts.

Seated in seat #1, beautiful woman who I saw playing in some red chip game is in seat 10. Is this the notorious PokerBabe? I ask her if she posts on 2+2, and her negative and confused response makes me feel like a big dumb computer geek. Any possibility of hitting on this woman succesfully is now trashed.

So, to compensate, I order a beer. Turns out, my heinekens will be comped. Needless to say michigan poker isn't quite as giving. I realize I'm in trouble.

The mirage tournament was quite good for a weekly tournament. The rounds were long (1/2 hour I believe), with a significant amount of play. Blinds started at 15-30 and you got a T500 stack. More importantly, most of the players played sanely allowing me to put them on a range of hands, unlike the maniacal tournaments in my neck of the woods.

Anyway, I lose my first hand and am down to 330 in chips. Then I manage to pull my favorite limp-reraise with AA and double up. Within the next hour I bring my stack up to 3,000 with some good cards and a few beer-augmented steals. After the break my cards go dead. But the beer is still flowing.

I finally pick up AQ, I raise, I get reraised and lose to 99. Another break, another beer.

Back from break. I get down to 500 in the 200 small blind. Call the raise blind, and manage to triple up with my surprise aces.

Then the hand that befuddled me. In the small blind again. I have 1400 in chips. Folded to the button who just limps. I find AK suited and push in. Big blind says, "I don't like that button limp". and mucked.

Apparently button limp had never entered my mind as being a dangerous play, but then I realized I was doomed, as he called. He of course had the AA, and I'm out before the money.

Question is : Is this button limp a silly silly play, or does it make sense if you have a drunk to your left? If I'm playing a hand on the button first in I'm raising, even if its 56s, so why not raise with your big hands too? Should I automatically suspect AA from the button limp?

Thanks,

[fnurt]

I'm not a fan of the button limp. The loosely defined idea behind it is to lure junk hands into getting a piece of the flop and staying in. Sometimes that will happen but the thing is, if you get a junk hand to put in a lot of their chips, there's a reasonable likelihood that they made 2 pair or something else that can beat AA. And against a random hand you'll never have a clue if the flop is dangerous.

The hands AA plays best against, smaller pairs and anything with an Ace, are also likely candidates to call a raise from the button (or even re-raise). With a raise you keep these hands in and get rid of the trash. In the actual hand he did win your stack by limping, but what would you have done with AKs against a button raise? Many of us would push in anyway, since you have many stealing hands dominated. We don't know what BB mucked but he might have stayed in and lost his stack too if the button had raised instead of making a weak attempt at deception.