$10 NLHE MTT: Could I have gotten out of this hand / played it differently?

[Axmanace]

pokerstars, $9.10 + $0.90 - Hold'em No Limit - 400/800 (100 ante) - 7 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

DogLobster (UTG): 21,131 (26 bb)
eltabross155 (MP): 24,472 (31 bb)
Monsieur Pug (MP+1): 19,532 (24 bb)
kelvinator23 (CO): 55,110 (69 bb)
McGurk13 (BU): 2,687 (3 bb)
KCB2250 (SB): 53,390 (67 bb)
axman_G (BB): 20,950 (26 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,900) Hero (axman_G) is BB with J♠ A♥
1 fold, eltabross155 (MP) calls 800, 2 players fold, McGurk13 (BU) calls 800, KCB2250 (SB) calls 400, axman_G (BB) raises to 3,200, eltabross155 (MP) calls 2,400, 2 players fold

Flop: (8,700) T♦ Q♣ J♥ (2 players)
axman_G (BB) bets 3,200, eltabross155 (MP) raises to 6,400, axman_G (BB) calls 3,200

Turn: (21,500) 8♣ (2 players)
axman_G (BB) checks, eltabross155 (MP) checks

River: (21,500) K♣ (2 players)
axman_G (BB) checks, eltabross155 (MP) bets 8,800, axman_G (BB) raises to 11,250 (all-in), eltabross155 (MP) calls 2,450

Total pot: 44,000

Showdown:
axman_G (BB) shows J♠ A♥ (a straight, Ten to Ace)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 67%, Flop: 36%, Turn: 22%, River: 0%)

eltabross155 (MP) shows T♣ J♣ (a flush, King high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 33%, Flop: 64%, Turn: 78%, River: 100%)

eltabross155 (MP) wins 44,000

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
When you make it 4BB, as you did here, you are never getting 3 limpers to fold, so you are just building a larger pot, when you are handicapped by being out of position, and you are doing it with a hand, thats decent by certainly not great. If you make it something like 7BB, which has a larger chance of making them fold, you are putting in more than 25% of your stack, and if the first limper call, you are still out of position in an even more bloated pot. So I dont like that option either.

26BB might seem like a very large jam, but with 3 limpers the risk/reward is actually reasonable, and so often limp ranges are very capped, and you just get them to fold a ton or even call off with worse. So personally I jam here most of the time, which also have the benefit of reducing the amount of future limps and perhaps put them on tilt. But if you prefer a more "small-ball" aproach, there is also nothing wrong with taking a free flop and then just go from there.

Flop
Even though you flopped middle pair and a gutshot to broadway, this is a very connected board and a kind of awkward situation with a low SPR of less than 2. Which is why, I did not like the preflop raise to begin with. I prefer to check here and try to get to showdown or improve a cheap as possible. You do bet though, and now he min-raise, which is just so awkward, I dont even know, what to say. The pot is waaaaay to big already, but you are getting like 6:1, so I guess, calling is ok? But I would never have put myself in this position to begin with.

Turn
Clear check, and if he had jammed now, I would have folded, but luckily he check back.

River
So you made the broadway straight, but a backdoor flush also came in, and there is only around a half pot sized bet left. Lining up your options I will first rule out check-folding, because well.... you just made your hand... and if nothing else you will very often be chopping, if he jam, and you are getting 2:1. Check-calling is reasonable, but as this hand played out, I dont think, you are inducing many bluffs, and I also dont think, he is valuebetting any hand worse than yours. So I prefer to bet myself, and the only reasonable size is to jam. Even though your hand is super obvious, some players just cant fold a hand like two pair or the dummy end of the straight.

Results
So he backed into the flush, and this obviously suck, but he also outflopped you with two pair, meaning you were behind the whole time. So postflop was mostly just a big mess, where in the end you were doomed to loose all your chips one way or another. Preflop however set the stage for this situation to happen, and this is where, you could have done something different and in my opinion better. If you shove it in for your 26BB, JTs most likely goes away, and this is ok. Or he call it off as a 2:1 dog, which is even better.

 

[300HPGOD]

As Fundiver above points out raising here is mistake and I will add that I think its a fairly large mistake to raise here unless you are jamming. The proper sizing to try to make 3 other fold with us being in the blinds is at least 6 BBs and probably more like 7 BBs. That is putting in 20-25% of your stack so you are better at that point to get it in if raising plus even if you make it that big you can get called which puts us in no mans land. When you make it as small as you did you are very lucky you only get one caller as usually once the first player makes this call then the ones after getting a decent price will also come along. I think jamming or just calling are good options pre and I think I would do some sort of mix of them depending on how loose or tight villains in the hand have been playing.

On the flop as played I would bet but I would go small and basically use the same sizing you did. I dont think there would be many hands that we would raise like we did pre and then hit the board and then check unless we have AK so checking to me gives villain freedom to bluff with any two cards if they know what they are doing. I like betting as a blocker bet of sorts and even though nothing worse is calling me other than 10x that have a straight draw as well I want to be done with this hand after making the error pre flop. Once villain raises here given how the hand is played I am cutting my loses and bailing out. I know the price is right but villain knows that too and I would think too often I am going up against two pair here which there is a lot of those hands that could limp pre and then call a raise. If we had just called pre flop then this is a check and then evaluate from there.

On the turn as played after calling the raise you have to check and when villain checks behind it would then mean to me that they bluffed the flop (which I doubt but its possible) or they have some two club hand. Any hand that has value on the flop should not be checking the turn there with another draw coming out unless that new draw coming out does not scare them. Therefore I would actually be thinking villain has about the hand they wind up having here when they check back the turn. If they were bluffing the flop and then checked turn I would expect them to have shut it down and my plan would be to check river and hope they check behind.

River is a crazy card of course since it gives us the straight but the flush came in that, like I mentioned above, it just feels like the villain could easily have. I would check as you did but then when the bet comes in (villain should have put you all in here) I am definitely leaning to fold. I would be thinking why would they check turn when they could have continued their bluff (assuming it was one) and then start up again on the river? I would highly be thinking I would be beat here and if I was playing my best then I would fold facing this spot. Its not easy to fold since we now beat two pair but is two pair betting this river when the flush and straight are there and they could check behind? I doubt it

 

[zorro222_zorro222]

I agree with what has been posted already, I hate playing out of position and am weary about building a pot preflop out of position and probably would prefer a jam rather than a 4x raise but given the preflop action I think what you did postflop was right.

 

[Endwarfin]

The flop raise should set off alarms, a typical limp call pre, raise the cbet flop line: Is almost always better than Top Pair Top Kicker.

You need to ask yourself what is this limp call raise line from coming from? You're only getting away if you can find a fold here.

 

[Tigroslav]

AJo out of position with 3 players showing they want to see a flop isn't a great spot.
26 BB's were too shallow to afford trying to isolate
and too deep to be wanting to commit a large portion of our stack with such a marginal
and often dominated hand.
Just a call trying to flop a monster hand or draw would be a much better line.

 

[webwiser]

I would like to ask what to do if the effective stack in this scenario is 3BB with player McGurk13 (BU): 2,687 (3bb). What can you do after McGURK13 limps? I believe that the all-in pre-flop is the most correct play.