Things are looking great. I'm sitting on the button with about 35 big blinds, late in a multi-table tournament. There were 5000 entrants and we're under 900 left, of which 540 get paid. With my stack, I'm not looking to hover around and try to min-cash, I'm looking to make a run at the final table.
In this hand there is one limper and my suited AQ is looking pretty. I make it 1850. The big blind is pretty short. He likes his hand and decides to move all-in for his 2770. The guy who limped in has a lot of chips, about 50 big blinds. He decides to come along.
Now I'm in a sticky situation. The size of the short stack's shove handcuffs me into calling. The raise of 920 is not a legit raise of my bet. I raised by 1350 and his bet is only 920 more. Technically, the betting is capped and a final call of 920 is the most I can do. I'm not sure if the 50BB limper realized that he could see this flop at a capped price or he was just in the mood to gamble, but for 2770, we were going to see this flop heads up, with a short stack all in.
This is a pretty good flop for me. I hit top pair with the best kicker, an ace. I'm only behind a set or some funky 2 pair hand which you would not think could possibly be in the mix (Q-2, Q-8, 2-8). The flush draw could present a problem, but there is no reason not to bet this flop. The limper checks and hands me the reigns. I bet 3765, which is about 2/5 pot. It's big enough to knock off the riff raff, but it might get a flush draw to come along. It might also get a weaker queen to call along. I'll have to make some reads on the turn card if I get a call here.
Our villain calls and we see the turn, a Jack of hearts. It's not a club, but it's totally in the range of speculative hands that could be drifting along on this flop. QJ could have been in there and is now a 2 pair hand. 10-9, especially of clubs, could have been in there. This is a dangerous card. Again he checks to me. At this point I either have to give up and hope he's willing to check down or value bet on the river, keeping me in the game, but hoping for a double up. Or I can go for it and make him drop whatever speculative hand he was playing passively (and terribly). His preflop limp screamed that he was speculative and weak. The check call on the flop could have been a trap, but after we see the hands face up, we know this is not the case.
This player has a clear case of "I don't know what to do with my chips late in a tournament" syndrome. He's bored, he's playing passively with a wide range of hands hoping to stack off on a good flop. To his error, he decided to commit 1/4 of his chips with 2nd pair, trying to pick off a bluff. Fortunately, I wasn't bluffing. Unfortunately, here is the result:
The turn card gave this genius his only hope. He catches one of 5 possible outs. We get our money in and now I'm a big dog, but still have 7 outs to win (three 2s, one Q, and three Aces). The short stack was crippled by my hand. The river blanks and another deep run is over for me.
