Situation:
Down to 58 players in the Graton $1700 ME.
We are ITM and in second level of day 2 blinds went up one orbit ago and is 3k/6k 6k.

We are in BB with JJ and 26bb behind.

Villain is a pretty aggro player, not that good but has been running incredibly hot since the prior day. I.e. been on the good side of KK vs QQ etc deep into the night.

Started the day off calling a short stack shove with T6o and flopping trip Ts vs QJ.

And then stacking another big stack with KJs vs KK.

PF: Folds to Villain in HJ who limps with like 100bb.(This is unsual for him) I've never seen him limp in the 3 hrs playing with him the prior day and he generally opens very large like 3x-4x.

Folds to SB who completes with about 20bb.

Hero?

Question here is whether it's better to shove or raise to like 4x/5x.

If the latter do you fold to a jam?

Our image is pretty tight so a raise here would be seen as TT+, AK.

Given the player you described, I am raising and not folding to a jam (If this guy gets it in KJs vs KK, then he must be making some moves). You really can't be checking JJ here. I think shoving 26BB vs a limp is overkill. You are giving the other players a chance to player their hands perfectly. Raise to 5BB and then be prepared to call it off or be prepared to get it in on a low board.

Thanks for the comment.

Just a caveat the KJs was not aipf I guess that was misleading. He happened to get lucky where KK was trying to trap him and he got lucky with a J J T flop.

I’m always suspicious when I see the first limp of an aggressive player. I’d still raise here but am a bit concerned that a limp jam would be nutted.

Is there any chance this was a live misclick?

This. We are putting villian with literally KK or AA in his limp shove range, yes? We still call off a limp shove after raising to 4-5x?

No chance it was a misclick.

I prefer to shove here with AK/AQ because we block AA.

I actually don't think it matters much what you do here. I would raise to about 5x with 26 bb's and two limpers and OOP, if I was raising.

My gut reaction is to limp here because villain can have a lot of AA. But if I haven't 3-bet much or raised limpers much then I would raise to 5x. If I had been 3-betting a lot I would jam some and limp some.

I like limping because we get to set mine as well as play smart on a smallish flop. I like raising to 5x because SB will fold a lot and it will be HU. I like jamming because we get to take it down and not have to play a big pot OOP with 26 bb's (also we won't be making two mistakes or more with JJ on future streets).

Curious what the average stack is and what the CO and BTN stacks are. I might weight AA and KK as a little less likely than normal. Someone with 20bbs and A4s in the SB is less likely to jam vs a limp than a raise usually….so limping with AA is extra bad in that case.

Regardless, I think I like checking best. You can still get it in a fair amount and/or play defensive as needed. If you were shorter I think raising becomes a bit better. Feels v bad to stack off this many BB’s against a spooky limp with no Ace blocker.

First limp from a "hot" running bad-aggro? Easy check and see 3. How old is V?

We're in the BB so when you say 'limp' do you mean you would check?

Guess would be around 25-30yr old Asian guy.

Avg stack at this stage was 35bb. CO I forget but let's say around 30-35bb. BU had about 65bb.

Yes. I would likely check back. If the original limper had limped before or I just knew he would never limp AA I would probably raise or jam.

Got it thanks.

And thanks all for the feedback on the hand.

Two cents - probably just raising this normally. If we think villain is not very good, limps can be all sorts of weird stuff and not necessarily traps. I've seen enough weird aggro-ish players raise 3x with QT and then limp 66. Really important not to see monsters under the bed in these spots.

If we have some kind of clear live read that we're getting trapped I would maybe raise smaller so we're getting decent set mining odds and then fold to a backraise, but I think just checking our option is a mistake.

Overbet shoving would be terrible. You just win a small pot if the limper is weak, but usually get stacked if he has a big pp. Normally raise/fold. With certain reads you could just check or raise/gii.

Yeah this is pretty much the conclusion I've come to based on all the comments and thinking through it again.

Since he limped from HJ, he could be limp/shoving mid pps or big aces you are ahead of, so that is a reason to check, aside from that he could have higher pps. However, without other reads, I would raise/fold.

That sounds like a reason to raise/call to me.

I think I would just lean that way, generally speaking. I feel like I'm reading a lot of reasoning that this is almost certainly a monster hand he's limping and 100% it is if he limp/jams. I don't see that being the case.

So my reasoning is that he had never limped at all previously and is super deep now.

I guess I'm having difficulty interpreting what a limp means now for someone who hasn't limped in 5 hrs of play.

I see arguments for both sides.

Check because your raise he is going to be either jammed on or called, he's never folding, so you're playing JJ OOP with an enlarged pot.

And that's the problem. It's very easy to overread limps in these situations. Unless I have some really strong read here I'm going to assume this is a bad player who limps some traps but also limps some hands they don't want to raise.

against HJ randoms I’d expect this to be low pp Axo low-mid SCs / UCs and weaker T9o+ rather than AA KK limp-jam traps (which are more common utg than HJ)

I’d raise smaller to around 3.5bb aiming to iso against HJ and keep him in with that entire broad weak range which JJ dominates. We also rep a range that covers overcards to the JJ nicely and can therefore range cbet the flop.

If you cbet Axx then be wary about continuing ott. Rec 100bb players on a live deep sun run tend to pick up and rely on some pretty keen postflop reading skills that shouldn’t be underestimated.

If a rec HJ limp raises I’d fold. We’re in unknown territory and a 23bb stack at this point of the mtt is super valuable.

So in 5hrs this is the first hand he didn't want to raise?

If he has some limps how likely do you think it is that he encounters it once during this time frame?

You mentioned in your OP that this was the 2nd level of Day 2. Hour long levels? If so, then anywhere from 1-2 hours into Day 2? Yet you said you had five hours of play vs villain...so were you at his table for the last 3-4 hours of Day 1? Or were you at his table earlier in Day 1?

You said you were ITM...but was ITM made during last few levels of Day 1? Or did the bubble burst sometime early in the 1st level of Day 2? Is this a 2 or 3 Day MTT?

I think the answer to those questions matter a lot here. Some players change their place post-bubble as compared to pre-bubble. Especially in 2+ day MTT's.