$250,000 tourny onPP - trouble hands

[marrek]

Hi all

I've been having trouble in my NL MTT's with the following types of hands, so i'll use two actual hands as examples.

Hand 1

mid pairs UTG to UTG +3. How do you play them?

99 utg +2 Blinds at 150 - 300, stack is 4500. so i'm not in great shape but one of the table leaders.

Do you open limp? raise? or fold? What if yuou were utg or had 88 or TT.

I've been trying differend things, limp, raising and folding randomly. In this case i raised to 900 and was reraised all in by a short stack. i only need to to call 600 more and did. i lost to an AJ. What bothers me here is that i'm forced to call on a probable race when i would rather wait for a better situation. THat dropped me down to T3000. If i had folded i could have avoided the whole thing.


Hand 2
top pair Top kicker on the turn, after you were called on the flop.

stack is about T5000 blinds are 50-100. i have an aggressive, somewhat tight image if anyone is paying attention. i have been raising alot and stealling pots, but showing mostly good cards.

preflop AJo on button
utg limps, everyone folds<font color="red"> hero limps ( as variation play) </font> SB and BB limp.

I only limped hoping to hide my hands strength in case an ace falls. i was raising alot and did not want to get rerasied. Also, the BB was loose aggressive, previously being hte chip leader, he has lost most of his chips and is now down to 1700 acting despate even thought the blinds are still low. Alos, utgs limp seems weird and i'm wondering if he has an AQ.

Flop

A, 9, 4 rainbow

SB checks, BB check utg min bet for T100, <font color="red"> hero raises to T400 to protect his hand and find out if its the best </font> SB folds, BB cold calls!!!, utg folds

Turn is an 8 completing the rainbow. BB is left with T 1200

BB checks, <font color="red"> hero... </font>

Do i bet here? The only thing the BB can have that i beat is an Ax. Also, because he's getting low on chips doesn't his call signify more strength?

Do i check hoping to check the hand down? If i check and he leads at the river, do i have to call his probably all in bet?

On the actual hand i bet T500, villian reraised T500 more leaving himself T 200. Can i fold here? I definately feel beat. I called and called his T200 river bet, to be shown A4 off for 2 pair on the flop.

This hand drained alot of chips from me just as i was starting to gain momentum. The villians call on the flop told me he was strong becasue of the position he was in, but is there any other way to paly this hand?

I guess raising pre flop probably would have eliminated all the guess work, huh?

thanks all

Marrek

[Tim H]

I see alot of people overplay (by my standards) their middling/small pp's. I will see a flop with them for almost any reasonable size bet. If its folded to me i raise a small amount otherwise I call, I will fold to an allin reraise.
If the BB is at the push anything stage a minraise can help cut your losses if you decide to dump it.

AJo - you were screwed the moment you decided to play it. I dont see the BB getting away from his A4 especailly after having the chip lead and being a lag. I don't see me getting away from tpgk when I get the 2nd best flop I wanted.

just my 2c