55 UTG

[davidross]

I had my first bubble loss tonight. $30 NL qualifier for SUndays $600 WSOP qualifier. I had an average stack the whole night, 15 seats were at stake, and 16-18 got paid. With 30 players left I was right around the bubble and thats exactly where I stayed. I won enough blinds to maintain my stack, but when we got to 20 I was still in the 16th spot. As we got closer all the other small stacks won pots and I was left as the only person with less than 10,000 chips and blinds at 2000/1000. I got AK on the button and pushed in. A monster stack called with 8c7c, and hit runner runner clubs to take me out. Even had I won though I was still in danger. My question is from earlier in the tournament. I think I played the late stages well. I made a couple of tough laydowns with medium pairs, but they both turned out to be good. At least my cost for playing on Sunday has been cut in half.

I had 55 UTG. My stack is 9830, around average, 30 players left. Blinds are 400/800. THere are a couple of short stacks that will go all in if they find a hand. I'd love to limp, but don't want to give away 800 if I'm raised. My image is really tight, all my raises (AA, QQ and TT) have won the blinds. Is this an easy fold?

THere were 2 limpers and of course a 5 flopped. Am I just being results oriented here?

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
and hit runner runner clubs to take me out.

[/ QUOTE ]

This doesn't have anything to do w/ your question, but I always find it odd when people say things like this about hands when all the money is all-in preflop.

Maybe this should go in the psych forum, but for some reason, people seem to feel a lot more pain when the hand in this situation is made "runner-runner" rather than on the flop. I never understood that.

[davidross]

Hey, i'm trying to be a writer, it sounds way better than I lost to a flush.

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]

Maybe this should go in the psych forum, but for some reason, people seem to feel a lot more pain when the hand in this situation is made "runner-runner" rather than on the flop. I never understood that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats kind of my pet peeve. Especially when I go all in with AK versus Q9 or the like. The board ends up Q238K and I hear 'nice river'.

[Tosh]

FWIW I would fold this everytime. I despise small pairs with any kind of decent sized blinds.

[ZeeJustin]

The table would need to be extremely passive to make limping here correct, and pretty tight to make raising correct. Fold.

[Joe Tall]

The level is much to high and the table is likely to be aggressive for such a limp.

Peace,
Joe Tall

[ohkanada]

Muck your 55. Stack isn't large enough to limp and usually at this stage in a tourney, even if you did limp there may be a raise behind you.

Ken Poklitar

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
The table would need to be extremely passive to make limping here correct, and pretty tight to make raising correct. Fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

This pretty much sums it up, Tosh.

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
Thats kind of my pet peeve. Especially when I go all in with AK versus Q9 or the like. The board ends up Q238K and I hear 'nice river'.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you on this. But I don't think that's how David was writing it up. Runner-runner is hard to not bring up because you know how Stars is, you see the flop, and think, sweet, I'm way ahead (with AK vs. 87s at least). Then the long pause before the turn...then another pause....then the river NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Or something like that. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

As for the 5's, I agree with folding. I pushed with a small stack last night in a similar situation with a pair of 3s, regretted it immediately, and then got called by a pair of Jacks. I flopped a 3 and got very lucky, but afterward it just confirmed to me (again) that in EP like that, you're asking to be taken out making that play.

[cferejohn]

Nothing new to say, really, but I'll add to the chorus of "fold this". You're not getting nearly odds to hit your set, and you can't really stand a raise here.

Laying down this sort of hand was one of the bigger adjustments I had to make coming from low limit cash games to tournaments. Limping small pairs from any position in a LL cash game can be correct if the game is loose/passive enough, but I had to learn to habitually chuck them in tournaments, especially once the blinds get to ~1/20th of my stack or more.