[Kurn, son of Mogh]

My rationale for the preflop play.

1) it's close to the bubble and I want to both maximize my chances of growing my stack *and* preserving my chips.

2) If I raise, they both call. Absent a TP/no-draw flop, they will not both fold if I bet the flop, they'll be getting odds to pursue a lot of draws. I have a tough row to hoe if I have to bet 800 into a 5200 pot. Similarly check-raisng 1600 into a 6000 or 6800 pot does little to protect my hand.

3) by checking preflop, I can represent a much wider range of hands than I can if I raise.

4) on a dangerous flop multiway, I can check and fold if it's a bet and raise to me.

In a cash game, I raise here 99.5% of the time. In NL, I likely push preflop in this situation. Earlier in this tourney it's an almost automatic raise. Only one limper and I'd probably raise 75% of the time. I think this specific situation called for me giving myself as many options post flop as possible. At this point, I start the hand with 7.5 big bets. The small stack will not be pushed off a small pair if the pot's too big on the flop relative to the bet size, and it's more likely both stick around in that case.

In this case I thought it was to my benefit to keep the pot small.

I admit it was a non-standard play, but I think it allows me to get away when I miss badly and represent a lot of hands on precisely the type of board I got on the flop