Borgata WPO Seniors event ($300+30). 186 runners. $16K first prize. Paying 18 spots.

~80 runners left, blinds at 500/1000 + 100

Hero has 15,000 chips (starting stack equivalent) so 15BB, down from 50K+ one level ago due to a few tough beats. Moved to new table, so few reads on other players, but other players have few reads back. New table does not seem to have any really aggressive players, nor any huge stacks.

After two orbits of mostly folding with crap cards (won a single small pot showing top pair (kings)), and blinds set to go up again to 600/1200 in 3 minutes, Hero sees QT UTG+1.

Hero decides to limp for 1000 with plan to limp/shove over any small raises rather than open shove. After Hero's limp, two other players call the limp to the button, who raises to 4500. (Button has ~65000 chips). Hero executes plan and shoves for 16,500. Limpers all fold. Button tanks and then calls with AQo

Regardless of outcome of hand, is this a good play? Obviously folding pre is an option, but with 15BB and mostly card dead, is it better to just open-shove or is it a good play to try to pick up an extra 4000-5000 (in this case 7500) chips by limp-shoving, also figuring that the hand hits a lot of flops and if you end up getting to see the flop for 1000 chips that's fine also.

Thoughts?

Your fold equity is much stronger with a 15BB open shove than it will be from a limp-shove here. The button probably calls you anyways here, but he's getting 2.25+:1 on his money with the way it played out. That's a pretty good price to call, so you're never getting a fold out of him here after he opens.

Playing the result, you end up in the same place, but normally you should be happy picking up the blinds and antes here. You're more likely to do so with an open shove. You want your fold equity to win the pot here more than anything else. By having QT you hold some removal cards which increase your odds of other players having domating holdings so if someone calls you're still in decent shape usually, but that's not the primary goal here.

I didn't check the chart but QTs UTG+1 with 15BBs is probably at the very bottom of your shoving range if it's on there at all.

I don't like the play. I wouldn't limp-raise anything lower than 99+, for the most part, and that's only with some aggressive players behind to act (and stack sizes matter, too). I'd say most players have a limp-raise range of JJ+ or QQ+, though.

The hand is just too weak to shove or limp-shove from this position. Do not play the next level, play the current one.

Openjam (do this mostly) or fold (do this if you have a large edge and/or people call shoves way too light) are your options, sometimes raising small is ok if your table is particularly tight. Once you limp and somebody raises they're going to fold somewhere close to 0% of the time and you're ahead close to 0% of the time. Heck it's a live tournament, there's a chance he'll fold the AQ when you openjam for 15bb from early position, but no way after he puts in a third of the effective stacks.

+1
i would add that even in a vacuum, open shoving 15bb UTG+1 Q10hh even in a live mtt seems way to wild. Seems like (im)patience took over on that one

Not crazy about opening Q-10 in early position with a short stack. If I did open it would be with a standard raise or a push, I would never limp it.

Opening the play with a limp in early position is a leak. Just don`t do it. The only time I ever would open-limp is if I had QQ+ and I was about 99% sure someone would squeeze.

I`m assuming that UTG folded and you were 1st in. If UTG limped in ahead of you then it`s a little different, and limping behind is often okay. But with Q-10 and a short stack you should probably just push or fold anyway.

Q10s at a 9 handed table utg isn't a good jam imo. So either raise small or fold.

Limping is (almost) never correct, and I particularly dislike the play in this spot from utg+1. You are never going to get away with a limp here against reasonable opponents. Furthermore when we start limping it can cause serious balance problems unless we also start limping with very strong hands as well. Good, observant villains are going to attack your limps and put you into tough spots, and we should avoid that at all costs. Try to play in a way that will make your later decisions easier and more clear. Limping in and getting raised is going to give you a headache much of the time.

I'd advise against limping ever in a tournament unless you are on the small blind limping to complete in an unraised pot (even then some players believe limping is never good, and makes it hard to balance our ranges preflop.) You're going to be better off raising hands and folding out equity.

By limping you aren't forcing others out, and you only give yourself one way to win - at showdown. By raising you give yourself two ways to win, at showdown or by making your opponents fold their hands. Raising forces out other players who have equity in the pot.

Your stack is too short to make a small raise imo since at 15bb you will be committing such a high % of your stack w a small raise anyway.

If you choose to play this hand it is my opinion that the best opening size is an all in.

All that being said I would just fold this hand preflop, you are in way too early position to play it and you can definitely find better spots to shove a 15bb stack. You'd be better off waiting for a button or cutoff hand to shove where you only need to make 2 or 3 opponents fold.

As played I would fold to the reraise after you have limped and try to make due w 14 bigs. If someone is raising to 4,500 here it is likely they either have you crushed or at best you are 50:50, either way it isn't a good spot. You also have virtually no fold equity here as they can call w basically any two against your shove based on pot odds alone. Q10s is not likely to be ahead of anything they raised you with.

Limping is a mistake that many, many players make preflop and one that you should eliminate from your game entirely if you want to improve.

Limp/re-raise is fairly typical at Senior events with AA/KK. I only see it as often in cheap daily tourneys.

If I was going to limp/re-raise AA/KK (which I don't) I would have a balancing range. But that range wouldn't include QTs because of exactly what happened. AQ will call down mostly, AJ won't. So I would balance with JTs/T9s/98s (all of which do well vs overpairs and AK/AQ).

Also, with 15 blinds I would just shove if I'm playing the hand. In this case I would fold because we are too early.

I think QTs at 15BB in this structure is close but ok as an open shove. Would never limp here, if we want to have some 2.2-2.5x raises here I might use QQ+ and balance with something A4s which I'm happy to fold to a shove but also has some removal effects.

I prefer a small raise to open. You raise X to win X+Y which will happen some of the time. Other times you can bet on most flops and win the pot. It does suck when you get raised and have to fold this, but at a seniors event I would expect people to play more straight forward with their hands.

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