Hi,

This is my first post in this forum and I want to hear your thoughts about how I played this hand.

Live tourney,200/400 blinds

Just sat in with 30 BB (12k) as I registred late.

MP limps 56 (reads on him is that he is a loose thinking player from previous games)
I open 2BB (800) from the cutoff with 4 4 Button calls,small blind folds and big blind 3bet to 8BB (3200),with around 20BB behind.

MP calls,I called,button calls.

Flop comes 10 4 6
BB Cbet 1/3 pot,MP shoves (he had me slightly covered),I called,button and BB folds.

Turn is a 6,river is a 5.MP takes the pot.

How do you guys normally play small pocket pairs in and out of position?

Thinking about it,I would probably last longer in the tourney opening at least 3-4x BB preflop and folding to a 3bet.

Thanks in advance!

You're borderline too shallow stacked to be purely set mining here. There are some spots where it might be ok though, ie. where you close the action in multiway pots, or against very tight ranges.

The blinds and antes make a difference to your stack. So really you should be pretty happy to open this from late position and pick up the pot. (Assuming no limper)

With the limper you then min raise which is never going to win the pot. You could raise bigger as you say to take it down pre but now you're committing a good % of your stack. You do have position when called by limper but your hand sucks post flop. There are better hands to iso with.

Having said you're too shallow to set mine, if the table is likely to let you limp behind to see a flop multiway then that's the best option imo.

As played you're calling with 3-1 direct odds. You'd hope to get paid a decent amount when you hit, but even with the 3bet the ranges can be pretty wide here so there's no guarantee. I don't hate calling, but better to preserve your stack imo.

PS. MP just limp/called 8bbs with 56o. You need to change the "thinking player" tag.