Walking back to Houston

[krakajak]

I'm in a SNG with 2500 chips, blinds are 75/150. I get AK on the button, with 2 lipers, and raise to 800. A limper with a stack as big as mine calls me. The flop is Q,4,4, and he checks to me. I figure he probably missed the flop, so I bet half my stack, hoping to take it down. He plays back and I know I'm beat, but I have outs (I put him on a Q or medium pocket pair), and figure I have to call and hope to get lucky, since folding would leave me severely short stacked anyway. I call, he shows QT, and takes the pot when I don't improve.

How could I have played this hand better?

[rjp]

check then fold if you don't improve. :D

[gol4pro]

Checking behind him here is a very weak play. Yeah it's easy to say that in retrospect... but you might as well flip your cards over and TELL him you have AK.

5xBB with AK with the blinds that high I think was a little much. 650 would have been more reasonable, because then you're not necessarily committing your entire stack to the pot if you stab and get called.

This is the kind of stuff that happens when people check top pair when they've played QT for 1/3 of their stack out of position.

He got lucky, it happens.

[wEbMaStEr]

Raising preflop with AK, you want to raise enough to remove the QT's of this world, but little enough that you can still get away from the hand should you miss.
With AK i want people to call my raise, but i also want A or K to hit the flop.
My advice.......
Raise 3X bb preflop, if you miss and he checks, bet half the pot.
Doing that in this situation would have left you with over half your chips when he reraised.
As it was you already had 2/3 of your chips in the pot so you were vitually tied into playing it out.

[NickFlynn]

I think you either raise 3xBB here or you go all-in to steal before the flop. Your pre-flop bet was too large - it left you pretty much pot committed after you bluffed at the flop.

You ended up on the flop with a pot close to $2000 and $1700 or so chips in front of you. You can't really afford to bluff at the pot and fold the hand if you are played back at. If you'd raised $450 or so, you would have had a $1200 pot and $2100 in chips. In that situation, you've got some flexibility when the guy checks to you. In that case, I bluff half the pot if I think the guy is a mouse, or I check and see the turn. Either way, you can still lay the hand down without being crippled. I don't want to get pot committed with ace high.

The comment above about "check and fold on the turn if you don't improve" was made facetiously, I guess, but I think that's exactly what you should have done in the situation.

- Nick