Payouts - $1700, $2700, $3700

Hero (MAWG) - playing TAG, never been seen without the goods.

Villain - young clean cut kid, my guess would be UC Berkeley STEM graduate, knows what he's doing, playing TAG has been big stack, very reluctantly agreed to pay the bubble from top 2, and does not want a deal because "he wants to win it". He knows I do, because I suggested it and told him I want to get home.

Blinds 6k/12K/2k

Button (rock) folds with ~250K
SB (villain) completes with ~250K (this is weird since this is the first time I've seen him limp, though whole tourney people have been limp happy)
Hero checks his option 45ss with ~160K behind

Flop 459r

villain bets 15K, hero calls

Turn Qd (bringing back door flush draw)

Check, check

River 5

Villain bets 30K, hero jams with another 110K and says jokingly "You're full of ****!"

Comments on all streets. When I hit two pair on flop, my only thought is how to get stacks in on anything other than a bad runout, but I think I played it too passively throughout, in particular my turn check back (I wasn't very worried about backdoor, and was looking for him to try to steal it on river).

Ooops sorry Mods should be Mid Stakes MTT, my bad

You should not be saying anything at all. Line is good. Turn does seem like a give up from villain.

would r/c flop, and bet ott as played

I actually like your line just fine. If he completely missed the flop (AK?), you've handled this dead-solid perfect in terms of getting more money out of him.

If he's got TT+, you might have had room to do something on the turn. But I'm doubtful you get more than 30k regardless.

The chatter isn't a bad idea, though I'm wondering if you picked the best phrase. He's not going to call you with AK. He might call you with TT, JJ, KK or AA. He's smart enough to know that you acted with that range in mind.

So you can get farther inside his head with something like this.

"You know, the best you can have is two pair. You've got no idea what I'm holding. I'm going to shove -- and take it down."

Then get up and go for a drink of water. Let him stare at an empty seat and a lot of chips in the middle. I used that approach in a Vegas tournament a few years ago (with a rivered flush) and got an exasperated call from a nitty player as my reward.

Speech play aside, the one thing to note here is that limping SB doesn't imply weakness or strength. Are you saying the villain hadn't limped a single hand from SB the entire tournament? (that seems unlikely)

Assume his limp range can be everything other than bottom 20%. On flop what would he lead here? Probably TT-QQ, majority of 9x, all of his draws and maybe even all of his overcards. AA-KK may check to induce. I think most middle pairs check back. That'd be about 56% of his range. I think flatting is fine here. If we raise we probably fold out most of his leading range and on this board we want to get him to bluff again.

When our opponent doesn't bet turn we can assume he doesn't have a Q very often and the range of hands that might pay us off on the river are 9x hands, TT-JJ and bluffs. You'd assume backdoor flush draws almost always bet turn. Because that's a pretty narrow range we probably get more value out of checking and hoping our opponent bets for perceived value or bluffs on the river. This is why position matters in this hand, because if we were OOP we'd probably want to be betting 1/3-1/2 pot to price out any backdoor draws that got there. That limits our ability for our opponents to have bluffs on the river.

As played river is easy.

Don't like this at all

-Flop seems close, I think I prefer calling but could raise too

-Turn checkback is terrible, never ever ever ever do that

-River speechplay is terrible and probably ensures you'll never get called by worse since you've just informed him you have a boat

On the limping. We've been at final table for a little over an hour, and this was the first time I've seen him limp from SB or any position. Wasn't sure what to make of that.

FWIW - he tanked for 2mins, kept muttering, "I don't see how I can't call this", "I don't see how I can't call this", "Nobody bluffs me" "Does my kicker play. Yes it does"

He eventually called, and looked devastated when I showed. He insta mucked without showing, someone said AQ, but not sure why he doesn't bet turn on that, so I feel a weak 5 might have been more likely.

I knocked him out 5mins later on a routine shove/call play.

Results aside, I'm I think my turn check back is definitely the most questionable part.

As for the speech, yeah I've used that line twice before with the nuts or close to, and got called both times by losing hands. That said, you're probably right, lay off it. I compensated by doing my best to look a little nervous.

The first limp is usually weak, obv this is a very very generic assumption and also depends on how he views you. If he thinks you're some spazzmonkey then sure it could be a tarp too. But just like, lumping all poker players in the world into one generic robot, I'd say it's weak significantly more often than it is a tarp. I think you could make a profit by shoving pre (just make sure to shove and not raise smaller, because raisefolding would be a disaster). However I think with this specific hand I'm pretty happy to just check back though and see a flop. Something like Q5s I'd frequently shove over the limp.

I think that's a fair point. You should default assume that a limp is weak until you have evidence to suggest otherwise.

Nicely played. Best humble-brag on this board in a long time. BTW, I enjoyed the extra context you provided because this was a real-world tourney. Sometimes people post live hands without sharing anything more than stack sizes, stage of tournament and a one-word label for opponent.

The forensics unit can do a lot more -- or at least have more fun trying -- if posters set the whole scene.

Wasn't intended to be a brag. It was one of those tournaments where I was card dead, where for 6 hours I really didn't have too many marginal decisions. I got lucky 3 times where someone was ahead in an all in or big pot, but you need some luck to win any tourney. This was the only big hand, and I'm trying to get into the habbit of even when I win examining my lines. In this case I do think I probably made a mistake not betting turn even though it ended fine.

preflop fine, 45s flops decent. Flop definitely call, way too dry of a flop to raise here. Turn is a pretty easy bet. villain most likely has some kind of showdown hand since he would most likely barrel on turn with air. You're hand looks bluffy when you bet this turn so on brick runouts you can get a street on the river too. River jam is gonna be tough to get paid here. His range is so weak and most likely 9x. You rep 5x waaaaay too credibly for a good thinking player to call you here. I would go smaller like 70k or 80k, jam is way too strong and you lack bluffs, since most your bluffs would bet turn (which is why you should always be betting this combo on the turn). Only hand that will definitely call you is 5x but having a 5 in your hand its really tough for him to also have a 5.

Limp sb super common these days (esp limp/Gii 20 bb spots)
Float flop ok
Bet turn.
Jam river
Lose the table talk.