How terrible is this play?
2/5 300 cap.
Hero in HJ with A9o limps behind 3 limpers
CO makes it 15 to go. Everyone calls, 5 way to flop.

Flop is A7hh. Hero has no heart s:
Utg leads for 20 Mp1 calls
Hero sees Rfi making a folding tell so I decide to raise to win the pot now. So I make it 75. I wouldn't do this without a tell that Rfi is interested in the hand


Is this stupid? I feel like I am making a value raise as AT is the best ace is most limp call ranges. And I don't want to play multiway., and the call by mp means his range Is capped?

As played it folds back to mp who calls, then in the turn he jams and I have an easy fold.

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Don't play A9o as a limp along and especially not vs a raise.

Playability is not great and you will not dominate any hands. Frequently you will flop too poorly to ever continue without the initiative.

What's the 3rd card on the flop? With a short stack game like this I don't mind raising in this spot for protection, cut down number of pllayers and charge draws. it's not likely someone has better and you don't mind taking it down. Just keep in mind the deeper the stacks get and the better the players get, the worse this play becomes and eventually it becomes a negative EV play.

Preflop is really bad. This hand is garbage multiway.

Raising the flop is also really bad and a huge overplay. Call and fold to a turn bet. We’re hoping it checks down.

You’re in a 5-way pot and you have top pair weak kicker. Try to get a cheap showdown or fold.

This hand perfectly illustrates why A9o is garbage. You flopped decent and still are not in a very profitable situation.

Fold pre and then fold pre again. This is played bad.

Flop raise is lolbad because you can easily have the best hand now but you are bluffing with it. Just call.

EDIT

Depending on flop of course, maybe the third card is a 9 in which case I can get behind a raise.

Probably easier to just grab a cheap lighter at the gas station and set the cash on fire.

Fold pre for all the reasons previously mentioned. This can make an OK isolation hand if the limpers are wide and will fold a decent amount, but as a limp behind it is not a great hand. Weak offsuit aces are not part of my limp behind range.

Why do you want to win the pot now? If you have the best hand you have an incentive to keep them in the pot to extract on later streets. If you have a read they are all weaker than A9 and will fold if you raise, then you should be bluffing more in this spot. However that's an unlikely scenario here. Your hand is not really good enough to play for a big pot here unless you have an incredibly specific read on their ranges.

Why do you think they are donking one pair? Sets & 2-pair hands are all part of this range. While it is sometimes difficult to understand what their donking range consists of, raising when you have a hand good enough to call with but can't get called by much worse is not a winning play. I understand your desire to charge draws, but you can't just play against draws when they have stronger hands in their range.

Raising the flop for value would be an advanced play that I will not advocate here. Preflop is a raise or fold..mostly a fold. There's just not many possibilities for A9o postflop.

I'm assuming you are using the term RFI to describe the preflop raiser. Please just say preflop raiser in the future.

I don't think at 2/5 300 max A9o is a playable hand unless it folded to you in the blinds.

That's certainly not true.

A9o is a standard CO or BTN open for me, and an occasional iso from those positions as well. I dont see game structure affecting it much. I think this hand goes up in value at a shallower structure.

I'd open A9o from CO and BTN as well if folded to me, in reality there's always like 3 limpers ahead and I'm not really psyched about iso-ing this hand into a limp chain. In that situation I'd fold CO and overlimp BTN.

But yeah assuming it folded to you on BTN, it would be pretty LOL to muck instead of raising.

Ok guys thanks for all the feedback. I didn't have time to get back to you until now but the question I wanted to ask was what then would you consider a good limp behind range?

Because this happens so much live and I hate waiting for limped pots to be over to the point where I get tilted when I've been playing too long and there's some bull **** limped pot.. Lol.

So offsuit aces are no go, but what about ATo? Would you limp behind with this?

How about suited aces? How far low will you go to limp behind? As low as A2s?

Or suited connectors, how low will you go? 56s? 45s?
Qs,Js etc etc..

Also the problem comes up when there's some iso raising, then you have to fold a lot of this junk mostly all of it. So should I have a limp call range?

This is all very confusing to me and has cost me a significant amount of money lol

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Your CO limp behind range depends on how awful the BTN\SB\BB are and how likely they are to raise. Also depends on what their limp range is.

I feel like the 2nd card is almost irrelevant here, A2s through A5s have approximately the same value since we're playing to spike a flush draw or 2-pair against a moderately deep stack. ATo and AJo, I'll sometimes limp, table dependent though.

78s or 89s depending on the table.

Limp calling is probably the toughest to just say outright. It depends on who's in what position, how deep they are, how passive/agressive they are, how good they are, etc.

In a stupid game like this with a 60 BB max buy-in and only two cards on the flop, well A9o is a hand you should never really be playing.