How should I have played this hand??

Hi everyone, I have seen some good advice on these forums, been reading for a few months now about the same amount of time I've been playing online poker. Had the hand below happen tonight and wanted to know how others here would have played it:
My read on Eskimo x so far had been he was the next best player at the table, meaning he was betting and representing his hands as one would think, hadn't shown down any junk hands. The chip leader was just getting lucky, making bad calls and sucking out every time almost.

No-limit Texas Hold'em $5+$1 (real money), hand #1,132,234,090
Seabrook Single Table Tournament, 2 Aug 2005 11:26 PM

Seat 1: eskimo x ($1,780 in chips)
Seat 2: Plaayahh ($1,225 in chips)
Seat 3: stonecoldbl ($870 in chips)
Seat 5: PokerP3t3 ($4,220 in chips)
Seat 6: NT__75 ($2,560 in chips)
Seat 7: HERO: dabeards [JD,AD] ($2,045 in chips)
Seat 8: chunter33 ($1,145 in chips)
Seat 10: conqueso ($1,155 in chips)



ANTES/BLINDS
Plaayahh posts blind ($25), stonecoldbl posts blind ($50).

PRE-FLOP
PokerP3t3 folds, NT__75 calls $50, dabeards bets $175, chunter33 folds, conqueso folds, eskimo x calls $175, Plaayahh folds, stonecoldbl folds, NT__75 folds.

FLOP [board cards JH,10H,4S ]
dabeards bets $150, eskimo x calls $150.

TURN [board cards JH,10H,4S,8S ]
dabeards bets $225, eskimo x calls $225.

RIVER [board cards JH,10H,4S,8S,AH ]
dabeards bets $200, eskimo x calls $200.

SHOWDOWN
dabeards shows [ JD,AD ]
eskimo x shows [ QS,KD ]
eskimo x wins $1,625.

I think I should have tried betting more on the flop or turn, but how much??

[bluewilde]

My suggestions are:

Preflop: No-raisy. I don't like playing AJs/o out of position. I'd even consider open-folding this, but I don't think limping is wrong. But playing AJ OOP in a raised pot on lvl 3 (i.e. early), is not cool.

Flop: Yeah, I think you want to bet more. This board is draw heavy. I would say bet the pot.

Turn: Having bet more on the flop, 8s is fairly safe, so I push (you would want to raise substantially, and given a larger flop raise/call, the pot would stand at about 900. I would want to bet about 900 chips, but that's a large enough % of your stack that you should just push).

River: Well I just pushed [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. In your case, about half your chips are in the pot, but I don't think you're totally committed yet. This guys been calling, which tends to indicate a) he's an d idiot b) he's on a draw c) he's slowplaying d) some combination of the above. Even though you've two-paired, just about all the drawing hands he might have just made themselves. So I check-call a modest bet--probably not more than 350 assuming 1000-chip pot (I'm estimating). So yeah...that's my take on it. Anybody else?

P.S. Don't include results in your post, at least initially. People might accuse you of making a bad beat post.

Thanks. I Definitly do not classify this as a bad beat, in looking over the hand the only questionable call that the villian made was preflop imo. He flopped oesd and my bets gave him the odds to call on every street. Was hoping on the river he would take my bet as meaning I made my flush but to no luck.

[ChoicestHops]

No reason to play AJo here. First you have plenty of chips compared to the blinds. Next you are completely out of position to raise AJo here. Preflop is definite EV-.

Flop, he was getting about 3-1 odds to hit his open ended straight draw with two over cards. Now the question is how aggressive had you been so far in this game as to if his preflop call was correct or not.

[durron597]

Preflop: I've been limping in this situation. I don't think raising is terrible though, the stacks are pretty deep on PokerRoom.

Flop: Well, you said the guy was solid. Does that mean he would call with a pair, a decent but not great hand, an overpair? Right now the only things that have you beat are sets, overpairs, and JT. If you can remove overpairs from his range then I think you really have to jam the turn, there are so many possible draws he could be calling with on the flop, and I wouldn't give him credit for a set here.

[ChoicestHops]

Why would you want to limp into the pot with AJo? How do you know where you stand when an ace hits. I would limp in only if it were suited in his position.

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
Why would you want to limp into the pot with AJo? How do you know where you stand when an ace hits. I would limp in only if it were suited in his position.

[/ QUOTE ]

He's sooooooooted.

It was AJsuited. I had not been in too many pots maybe 3 to 5, hit on one and got my stack up. I had limped in a hand or two before this one with AQo, missed flop and folded to a raise. I felt my table image should have been kind of tight so made the raise to 3.5xBB. But lets say I limp there instead so we have at least 4 people seeing this flop if not 5. UTG, me, villian, SB and BB. I hit top pair on this draw heavy board. How to play it then?

[ChoicestHops]

I am an idiot.

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
How to play it then?

[/ QUOTE ]

Very carefully, try to get to showdown as cheaply as possible.

To be clear, I don't mind the raise given the specifics to your table in the OP, I was just saying I have been limping a lot in that spot recently because I don't want to play a big pot. But I am definitely jamming the turn the way you played it, betting small there is just wrong.