Limping from button with AJo after 3 limpers late in tourney

[OneByPhi]

I saw a hand in a tourney yesterday that I found intersting, and I would love to hear other people's opinions on. I know what I think, but I'm still relatively inexperienced, and I would love to hear opinions from better, more experienced players.

$50 buy-in tourney with 182 players at a casino. 19 are left, only 10 get paid. There are 9 players at our table. Blinds are 1,000/2,000, and go up to 2,000/4,000 in about 3 minutes. Almost everyone's M is low enough or will be after the blinds go up to put them under serious pressure.

UTG (tight and somewhat passive with 11,000 chips) limps, fold, 3rd seat (new to the table, no solid information on how he plays, with 16,000) limps, fold, I fold, big stack (loose, erratic, and for today at least very lucky, with about 55,000) limps, button (tight and somewhat passive with 16,000) limps, SB (loose and somewhat passive, with 14,000) completes, BB (obvious relative newbie who has survived several all-ins, with 8,000) checks.

Flop comes A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] Q [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].

SB goes all-in, folded around to button, who then analyzes the hand out loud. He says something like, "I know you don't have AA, QQ, 66, AK, or AQ, or you would have shoved preflop. You might have A6 or Q6 in the small blind, but I can beat anything else you have." He's basically saying that he has AJ, and I assume he's saying this to see how SB reacts, but SB is a stone wall. After maybe 30 seconds of studying SB, button calls and turns over A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. SB turns over A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and it holds up to win, crippling button.

Let's leave aside the question of whether any of the other player's preflop limps were stupid. Do you think button's preflop limp was wrong? Should he have shoved with AJo after 3 limpers, even though the last one to act after his shove would be the big stack, who had plenty of chips and who had been calling a lot of all-ins, and would almost surely figure that with a lot of dead money in the pot and a big stack, a call was worthwhile, so button probably wouldn't be able to buy the pot with his all-in and his hand would have to stand up? Second, should this have been an easy instacall for button, or was his hand analysis and watching for a reaction a good idea, or should he just have folded? Again, I have my opinions on these questions, but I would love to hear what others think.

[reecelights]

With my stack I'm either pushing (95%) or folding (5%) depending on how I feel about UTG. The other two limpers don't worry me as I'm fine with a race against 55-99 or a weak suited connector call.

You won't believe how many times I've seen people limp JJ UTG live. And there's no way I want to play AJo in a 5 handed pot.

[TFGoose]

Unless UTG is the type of player to limp a big pair from early position like this, I probably push this button. No-one at this table (other than that big stack) should be limping anything at all. Their M's are atrocious for it.

I say push PF, and HOPE the big stack calls. It's is very likely button holds the best hand, so why not get your money in with that and double up?

--TFGoose

[nath]

button not shoving is atrocious, people in live tournaments make tons of stupid mistakes, and the solution is not to make stupid mistakes in return

[hamnegger]

yes he had definite steal opportunity here and he paid dearly for passive play.