Bad move in Home Tourney?

[Hellrazor]

Ok here's what happened last night.. can you guys tell me if I played it incorrectly?
(I'm a moderate level newbie...)

It's a $40 buy-in ten person tournament style poker game. (one winner takes all cash minus the pizza and beer)
I'm second in chips with $134 chips going into the hand - I'm dealer. BB is chip leader with approx $150

5 Player left
Blinds are 5-10 at this point.

I'm dealt a A /images/graemlins/spade.gif 2 /images/graemlins/spade.gif

UTG folds, UTG+1 limps, I limp (bad call?), SB calls, BB checks.

Flop: A /images/graemlins/club.gif Q /images/graemlins/spade.gif 2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif
(Yeah baby)

SB checks, BB bets out 10, fold to me, I raise all in. (again bad move?)
SB folds. BB calls. At this point we flip - I correctly had him at a pair of queens with no kicker.
He shows Q /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 5 /images/graemlins/heart.gif.

Turn card - 2 /images/graemlins/club.gif
I'm psyched here.. gonna double up and move into a big chip lead. (I won the last tournament with these players - my first ever tourney about 2 weeks ago)

River - Q /images/graemlins/club.gif

He wins Q's over 2's.

Where did I go wrong - or how many times did I go wrong??

Rip me apart please - at least if I feel I played it wrong I'll feel like I deserved to lose.....

[CrackerZack]

He called your all-in with Q5 on a AQ2 flop? He called 124 more of his 140 stack? WTF?

[Nottom]

Your opponent had to go runner runner to beat you and you think you made the mistake. Fine play, bad luck.

[Bozeman]

Preflop you shouldn't be limping with blinds this big since you need to flop 2 pair or better to be confident you are ahead. After the flop, you need to get it all in, and your opp. called as a 8.8:1 underdog. (how many chips are there at the table? 500?)

Craig

[baggins]

chip leader has T150, you have T134, and the blinds are 5-10? those blinds are HUGE. between you and Chipleader, you have 71% of the chips, with 3 more opponents. since the blinds are huge, you definitely want to raise anytime you enter the pot. A2s is a tad bit weak here, but it was limped around, family pot, so not too bad.

after that, i think you played it fine. the pot was $60 and you (having 2ndchiplead) raised allin with ~$120 or offered your opponent 1.5:1 on his call, if he calls.

his call was atrocious. but, suck outs happen. that's how it goes. tough break kid. can i play in this game? please?

[Hellrazor]

400 chips.

My thinking was that with a much larger stack that 3 of my 4 opponents, calling the blind with a suited A on the button wasn't a bad call - should I have raised or folded instead?

Thanks again for the analysis. The table was loose passive for the most part with the guy who beat me on the all in as being loose aggressive.

[slamdunkpro]

I'd have raised pre-flop. Axs is a fairly strong hand in a short hand game.

If the other player was that loose / agressive he would have most likely called anyway but sometimes you're just gonna lose.

[Bozeman]

I don't see why you think the largeness of your stack relative to most of the others' is a justification for a call.

In general, calling instead of folding can be justified by odds or implied odds, while calling instead of raising for disguising one's hand (again looking for future money, like the implied odds case).

When either your stack or your opps. is small relative to the pot or blinds, implied odds are small. In addition, they are more likely to call now and there is less extra money to win, so calling instead of raising is usually a mistake here.

Thus, you should be inclined to raise or fold.

If your hand is the best now, RAISE. You will presumably get out the stack that can bust you, and have an edge against a stack that can't.

If your hand is not the best (needs to improve), fold. I think A2s falls into this category here.

Craig

[Hellrazor]

Hmm... maybe I'm under the wrong impression - but if I am up against someone in a tournament (this doesn't hold true for standard games) and I am way up on them in chip count. I use that position to "bully" oppenents - in a five handed game with Axs and you are on the button - is it really such a bad move to call? Looking back I think I should have actually raised here - just stealing the blinds would hurt at this point - and being the button and having a fairly good read on my fellow players - I think I would be able to tell if one of them hit and be able to fold easily on the flop.

Am I way off here? I definitely bow to the greater knowledge here - so far I think 2 or 3 posters either agreed or didn't criticize the call and 2 said a fold was in order.....

I think, and again I may be (probably am) wrong, the key difference here is that is was a one winner take all tournament.

[slamdunkpro]

Yes it really was a bad move to just call. Knock em' out by raising /images/graemlins/cool.gif