Rate this play please with QJ

[bravos1]

Situation is ~170/450 remain in tourney
blinds 50/100

I'm in BB w/ QJo ($1350 - currently about 80th and I'm mostly tight/aggressive)
get 1 limper (very loose/aggressive) ($5500 and just won $3000 pot with runner runner two hands earlier.)
SB limps (~$2250 - not much info)
I raise to $300
limper calls
SB folds
flop come J37 rainbow
I check since he has been so aggressive in all the 20 hands or so I have seen him play regarding his betting frequency even though amount has been all over the board from 1/3 pot to 5x pot)
He bets 300 and I go all in with my remaining $1050.
He calls and turns over J3o catching 2 pair.
Turn is rags and river is a 3 completing his boat and busts me even though the 2 pair would have been enough. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

I feel I played it correctly, but several people thought I was nuts for different reasons.. some said I should not have raised preflop (I totally disagree) and others could not believe I had risked my tourney with just top pair and said it was a stupid thing to do especially since he had 4x my chips (I still don't see the corrolation there.)

I was 99% sure that he did not have QQ, KK, or AA cuz there is NO way he would just limp with those. So I put him on something like suited connector or Jx since he seemed to play any face card and figured I was in pretty good shape.

Any thoughts on how this could of been played better? Was I stupid as so many thought (though I would argue this one for a while..lol)

[Lloyd]

Your pre-flop play was not good. I can completely see raising this hand in this situation. You're getting shortstacked quickly and need to start picking up some pots. You most likely have overcards to the two limpers so you're not in horrible shape if called. Your problem was that you did not raise enough. By raising it to 300, the villain is getting 2.5 to 1 odds to call making a call with almost anything correct. I'm ignoring the fact that he shouldn't even be in the pot to begin with holding J3. But that's really irrelevant. You gave him great odds to call and that decision by him was correct.

A rule of thumb is that you raise 3-4XBB plus 1BB for every limper. In this case, I'd make it at least around T450. I think the better play, given that you are shortstacked and in bad position is just to push.

When you hit top pair with this hand I don't think you can get away from it. You played it correctly in getting all of his chips in the middle but unfortunately paid the price for your small pre-flop raise. When you get this shortstacked and flop top pair getting all of your chips in the middle is the best you can do. If you're behind, oh well. You can't be waiting for monster hands and more often than not you'll be ahead of your opponent with this hand.

So, you're friends IMO are playing way too weak and as a result will not likely finish at the top of an MTT. They may squeak in and cash every now and then but that's a long-term losing proposition. You had the right idea but just made a bad decision on your pre-flop betting - something that you can easily correct.

[bravos1]

Thx for the response...
I thought about this bet for a bit before making it. I originally wanted to bet right in your range you suggested.. I was thinking 475 if I recall correctly, but decided for the 300 bet instead. My logic (which may be flawed [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) was that if I bet the amount I did and both stayed in, I would be a pretty large dog and could still get out of the hand. I knew no matter what I bet, the 1st limper would stay in as he has been calling basically everything and raising with moderate to good hands. Although I did not have much info regard the SB player.. he did seem to be playing fairly tight as he had not played too many hands. In this case, I wanted to value bet, but did not want to pot commit myself against a calling station if the flop totally missed me, especially if it was Axx as he has played every single Ax hand as far as I could tell so far... even went to showdown with hands like A6 and only pairing his 6. He was pretty maniacal, but as I mentioned, I wanted to get some $$ into the pot, but did not want to trap myself by making such a bet that I was forced to stay to the then.. anyone else have a thought on this.

[bravos1]

But let me also add, that as you suggested, pushing PF is most likely the best move here although his maniacal looseness was scaring me when I only had a marginal hand.