Playing the SB and hitting 2 pair - a tourney hand.

[plankton]

Mirage $100 NL HE with rebuys. Pays final 9. We are down to 15 players, I am SB (250/500) with a little above average stack (~8000). I have been playing very tight/aggressive. I have not shown a hand yet since we were down to 3 tables.

2 folds, and mid position big stack calls 500. Fold Fold - I look down at Q8s. Do I call for 250 more? 1/32 of my stack? I call expecting to fold to any raise or a missed flop. Is this mistake number 1?

Flop is AQ8 raindow. I think jackpot - mistake number 2 as I didn't respect the chance for a better hand. I expected to see KQ, QJ, or a weak ace. So I prepare to check raise. I check, BB checks, Big stack limper makes it 2k. I pop it all in. As soon as I do, I realize he probably has AQ. He does. and I lose.

I don't mind the loss as I was gunning for top 2 or 3 - not 9th. A win there gets me 15% of chips.

Should I have folded preflop? I don't think so as I was playing very tight otherwise, but maybe this is a hole I need to fill in.

Should I have expected to be beat when he bet 2000? I didn't think so as his preflop limp and bet on th button after 2 checks and an AQx board screamed decent hand, that he wanted to win with right away like KQ or A9. Why scare us all out with top 2 pair? Maybe I was wrong here too?

Bad luck I'm happy to accept, but i want to know if others play it different.

Thanks,
Plankton

[fnurt]

I see nothing wrong with your pre-flop call unless you felt the BB struck you as a raising type (obviously he didn't).

The limper bet 2000 into a 1500 pot? Maybe it's a small overbet but no way would I figure him for AQ. Particularly since it was senseless for him to limp with AQ as the first one in from MP. It would have served him right if he had limped with a hand that could have won the blinds pre-flop and been snapped off by your 2 pair. As it turns out he played it wrong and got a lucky flop.

[Justaloser]

You are more experienced in tourneys than me, but what would be wrong with a minimum reraise here? It's another 500 chips, but with the table image he thinks he has, might that be enough to steal the blinds right off?

I agree that you can't but MP on AQ (I would have raised too), but if he calls a reraise, then it would be much easier to put him on that hand. If he gets called or reraised after making a raise, he knows that he's against a good hand (most likely not a blind steal). When the flop comes and MP fires out betting, I think that he would no longer think about all-in so quickly.

In short, would have it been better to sacrifice 500 chips to get a better idea where he stood? He'd either gain the blinds or only lose 500 more chips instead of his entire stack.

[fnurt]

It's really hard to imagine the limper folding to a minimum re-raise. You're talking about him calling an additional 500 into a pot of 2000. So I don't think the limper would tell you anything by calling 500.

A re-raise from the blinds is basically a steal attempt (it's certainly not a raise for value, with Q8s!) so if you're going to try and steal, you need to make a real raise, like pot-sized. This is a high-variance play but I have no problem if a SB wants to try it some of the time.

Q8s is no beauty, but it does have the potential to make a real hand, so I can't argue with the poster's decision to call cheaply and see if a good flop comes. Now if the SB's hand had been 72o then the only two choices are go for the steal or fold - calling half a BB to see the flop, even with the implied odds, isn't likely to be the right move.