Weird hand, how bad/spewy is this?

The limp seems fine given the open limp seemed unusual.

The push seems bad. If everyone folds, all you can do is isolate and you can wind up losing chips. If you get called, you are a slight favorite or a 4-1 dog.

Calling is a pretty good situation. You are getting good immediate odds to hit a set. You can sometimes bet a low flop and since the pot is protected, you should get more folds and less bluff raises.

When you over limp, there is an option to 3! with a hand strong enough to have raised with initially. However, this is not the best hand to do that with and a bad situation to do it.

Calling is better than folding which is better than all in.

Because, aggressive players who limp from EP are, in my live game experience, heavily weighted to KK+.

Given that nobody was limping preflop I have no problem with limping behind preflop. But once you do that, jamming makes no sense. UTG can have AA/KK (mostly AA).

The other problem is that I don't think you have a lot of fold equity here. So at best you are ahead and are flipping probably against two or three people who likely have at least 3 different overcards. At worst you need to hit a set. In this spot I would go set mining for 4 bb's (especially because we are last to act).

So, really bad...

Yea I guess I thought once UTG just smooth called the 42k that he definitely did not have AA or KK, I thought for sure he’d jam those, and button big stack is raising with a pretty wide range that I would have pretty good food equity or maybe be flipping with some extra dead money in the pot. Of course even if I got the folds I still have to beat the short stack to scoop the pot. Hmm.

So did the limp/caller call with a higher pp?

I canÂ’t decide whether bolded is Orwellian or Pythonesque.

UTG would be the first player in history to limp UTG with AA/KK, get an immediate call, a pot size raise from the aggressive button, an all in call from the BB, and then just call. I bet he had 99 and smelled a rat after the button folded. Did he beat the BBÂ’s AQs though?

Snap fold for me from the gitgo but as played thereÂ’s 84+38+10+5+5=142 in the pot 32 to call so yeah call I guess, still have 8 orbits left if you donÂ’t flop a set.

Really opponent dependent. I don't hate the iso shove if you think UTG is playing fast and loose and button is raising really wide. As deep in the tournament as we are, though, and not having that much confidence in their ranges (especially since we haven't seen a limp before), I'd be more averse to taking a high-variance range.

I think the initial limp isn't that bad, although I think I prefer raising, probably to 30k (and just fold if UTG limp-jams on me). Or if I was feeling like the table was either tough or I was going to get too much action behind me, I'd just fold. Probably fold is a more viable play later in the tournament-- if this was a 9-handed FT and UTG was limping for the first time, I might do that.

Not sure how you got 8 when if he calls the 42k and later folds he has 258k at 5k/10k/(presumably 10k BBA). That's 10 and change.

8 orbits left, because the blinds are going up. Also, you don't want to completely blind out.

Calling when it comes back to you is profitable, so why take the risk someone calls you with a higher pp in order to isolate versus the short stack? The raiser may be loose, but he is uncapped.

Limping behind doesn't lose much regardless, so seems better if you think the limper may be trapping. It is a great situation if the limper has AA/KK and you flop a set.

I did do the orbit math wrong (and the pot math; 147K not 142, it was late), but yes, 8 orbits effectively. ‘Easy’ call closing the action, but how does hero play say 663r flop if UTG checks? Or a TT3 flop?

The issue with the limp behind in ep in this particular hand is thereÂ’s an aggressive big stack on the button.

Edit: probably worth noting that BB is so short he could have almost anything to shove here getting 83-28.

Perhaps the player is trying to get a complete double up with his big pair and wants to get hero to stay in the hand.

He’s going for a complete triple up then, because the button is still in the hand, and the all in BB too

I am fine with limping behind and limp/calling a single raise with this hand. You mostly want to play for a set and some other good flops multiway. You might get pushed out of the hand by a 3!, but that is OK only putting in 1xBB. It is a good result is the limper has a big pair and it goes as a limped pot, because you should win a lot from him if you hit. I know everyone wants to play aggressive and not limp, but it is the best play here.

If he reraised the 42k all in does he double up?

I don't care if the short stack may quadruple up.

If it goes as a limped pot and you hit and get action from the first limper, you can have a pretty good read he has QQ+, so you should be able to get close to stacks in. So that is a really good situation, so it would be bad and throwing away an opportunity to raise and then fold to a 3! from the limper.

Shove would be worth considering if there was not a player allin.

As is, played a raised pot 4-way with 88, one player allin, is a fairly good situation, somewhat profitable.

There's no mention of the blinds going up in OP. And of course you don't want to completely blind out, but that's not relevant to how we measure how many orbits around the table we can pay.

So this is a unique tournament where the blinds don't go up in 10 rounds, which should be about 3 hours?

I guess I would look at it this way in your shoes:

1. The limp was strange enough to cause me to limp behind with 88 vs a covering stack
2. The flat of the 42k is certainly another data point to consider
3. But I haven’t articulated what information I obtained from this data point to explain my shove all in.
4. So I don’t understand how the limp may be real strong so l also limp becomes the flat call was so weak that I decide to shove .

Again, just not how we measure these things. How many do you have now is how we measure our stack and what moves we can make. It seems incredibly unlikely anyone would fold for 8 or 10 straight orbits anyway.

TBF OP said right away he doesnÂ’t play tournaments.

Well UTG is a bit fishy, my initial read was strength when he limped. I completely changed my mind when given a raise to 42k and the short stack all in in front of him he didn’t shove, instead he hemmed and hawwed over calling the 42k. Looked super weak to me. And I really just thought Button was raising too wide and the most likely result was a fold and getting HU for the 175k against BB any two. Next most likely result would be I’m flipping for all my chips. If I was unlucky the button would have a higher pair.

Anyway the button tank called with 99 , BB had Q5, and that was all she wrote.

I'm not trying to be unfair to OP, putting myself in his shoes, I just don't see the logic of his flipping from one extreme position to the other based on what happened. His further explanation may be enough to flip between these extremes but these factors were not initially presented.

When I do this type of polarized thinking I try to figure out if I placed too much importance on a particular fact,

BTN saw 2 ep limps from players who don't usually limp and raised anyway. A reasonable percentage of his range is going to be 99+.

You don't gain enough by sometimes isolating versus the short stack or getting into a flip a little ahead against AQ or something like that. It isn't worth the risk. Fine to see a flop 4-ways.

If you called, you might have lost some more to BTN on a low flop.

The logic behind the shove is reasonable, but I think the key here (other than that UTG thought a while and looked pretty weak when calling) is the button raise. Maybe he's going too wide, but with two limpers in front he's really disincentivized to bloat the pot with weaker holdings since he can expect at least one call. 88 is a really tricky spot since you're still flipping with all those overcard hands, if he raise/calls AK/AQ here, but he probably rarely if ever raises with a worse pair than 88 and certainly doesn't call with one.

Closing the action getting 4.5-1 on the 32K call, ugh. I hope BB spiked a queen on the river for the main pot and went on to win the whole thing.