How bad was this play? 14 left in a 50+5
 

#Game No : 3031952245
***** Hand History for Game 3031952245 *****
NL Texas Hold'em Trny:17385251 Level:15 Blinds (1500/3000) - Sunday, November 13, 20:49:45 EDT 2005
Table Multi-Table(510881) Table #2 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 3: ChoicestHops ( $37931 )
Seat 4: mullett3 ( $75327 )
Seat 5: TubFart ( $17450 )
Seat 6: LOSMAN475 ( $41622 )
Seat 9: Watts1000000 ( $109992 )
Seat 1: bartrain23 ( $9971 )
Seat 2: g_nad ( $31540 )
Trny:17385251 Level:15
Blinds (1500/3000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ChoicestHops [ 8d Ah ]
Watts1000000 folds.
bartrain23 folds.
g_nad folds.
ChoicestHops raises [6000].
mullett3 calls [6000].
TubFart folds.
LOSMAN475 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5h, As, Qc ]
ChoicestHops bets [8600].
mullett3 raises [17200].
ChoicestHops is all-In [23331]
mullett3 calls [14731].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Th ]
** Dealing River ** [ 2d ]

Under average stack in the tournament. No reads. Only been at the table for a few orbits. I was playing particularly tight at the time because of no cards. Should I have folded pre-flop? Pushed all in? Obviously I was hoping just to take down the blinds. I couldn't see a fold being correct here, I had already put half my stack into the pot.

Re: How bad was this play? 14 left in a 50+5
 

I would have raised to minimum $9000 preflop with a $3000 big blind. When you get called with a 3xBB bet, you can be relatively sure that it's a strong ace (AK, AQ, AJ, at worst AT) or a big pocket pair. You were right to bet out on the flop, but with the big reraise I think I would let the hand go. You actually only put 1/3 of your stack in the pot up to this point and you had enough chips left over to be a contender. With a hand like A8 I'm happier when the flop is 8 high, or even better gives me 2 pair. With an A on the flop, I'm not going to risk too many chips because my kicker is weak and Ax is the most likely calling hand. You also could have gone all in on the flop to represent AQ. This would be easier with a bigger raise preflop and won't work if your opponent has AQ (definite possibility) or A5 (less likely).