How would you play this? (online tourney hand - bubble has burst)

[Departed]

I"m sitting in 8th with 18 remaining. 10th to 18th all get $192. Money escalates after that up to $4.8k for first.
Table is playing very tight. The guy who calls is playing passive and I think he is calling with ~ 66+,QJs+,KQo+. There have been very few showdowns so I"m not sure how accurate this is, but he has made a few calls in position.
As you probably realise from me making this post, I go out on this hand, and I don"t think I played it well, but would be interested to hear some thoughts....

NL Texas Hold'em $100 Buy-in + $9 Entry Fee, Level:14 Blinds(500/1,000-100 ante) - Sunday, July 13, 22:55:16 GMT 2008
Daily $16k GTD #155094
Table 2 9-max (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of active players : 9
Seat 1: rajab49 ( 18,700 )
Seat 2: Pimpyoo ( 4,579.88 )
Seat 3: hedgehunter ( 13,875 )
Seat 4: Honeybadg ( 6,608.38 )
Seat 5: simsim ( 26,582 )
Seat 6: Gogetum ( 31,867.50 )
Seat 7: merlinkay ( 5,863.50 )
Seat 8: veej ( 24,335.50 )
Seat 9: Departed ( 19,725.64 )
Tourney Level:14 Blinds(500/1,000-100 ante)
rajab49 posts ante [100]
Pimpyoo posts ante [100]
hedgehunter posts ante [100]
Honeybadg posts ante [100]
simsim posts ante [100]
Gogetum posts ante [100]
merlinkay posts ante [100]
Departed posts ante [100]
veej posts ante [100]
merlinkay posts small blind [500]
veej posts big blind [1,000] Pot 2,400
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Departed [ jh, ]
Departed raises to [3,000]
rajab49 folds
Pimpyoo folds
hedgehunter folds
Honeybadg folds
simsim folds
Gogetum calls [3,000]
merlinkay folds
veej folds Pot 8,400
** Dealing Flop ** [  ::,  ::,  qh ]
Departed bets [5,000]
Gogetum calls [5,000] Pot 18,400
** Dealing Turn ** [  kh ]
Departed goes all-in
Departed bets [11,625.64]
Gogetum calls [11,625.64]

[TopPair2Pair]

Dude is it me or is the post missing a river and the cards your lost to?

[AMRN]

I suspect the other guy had a bigger flush.  Not sure I would have open raised UTG on a full table with such a decent stack holding just AJo - a little unnecessary perhaps, and for me an insta-pass.

[Roscopiko]

Once you have got to the turn, with 1 card beating you in the pack I think you can go busto here 99% of the time and not feel too bad about it.

[kinboshi]

Once you have got to the turn, with 1 card beating you in the pack I think you can go busto here 99% of the time and not feel too bad about it.

Agreed.

[Hooligooner]

You say the chap is passive, was he playing a pair of kings for trips with the board pairing on the river?

Also with him being passive in mind, what do people think of not continuation betting/semi bluffing the flop to have 5k more fold equity once your flush had hit? Not sure If I could do this but it"s just a question.

[Departed]

Yeah sorry...he had AKo with A being a heart.

I think I am happy with betting the turn as I am not folding the 2nd nuts with my stack to pot ratio.

However, I probably could have avoided the whole mess by perhaps by folding pre, as AMRN suggested, or not firing out a c-bet on the flop.

My reason for raising pre was that the table was playing phenomenally tight - the bubble had burst about 30mins previously and not 1 person had since got knocked out. A raise was usually taking down the pot, and if not a c-bet tended to do the trick. I hadn"t played a hand in ages, and maybe there was a slight "boredom factor" in making the raise, when perhaps I should have just passed it.

Having made the preflop raise, what are your views on the c-bet? In hindsight, I think this is my major error. I think he is folding a lot of hands to it, but I suspect it was not the right move by me due to my stack. By c-betting I had put in nearly half my stack so I was no longer able to get away from the hand.  Then there would have been the option to check fold, although admittedly if he had checked behind I would certainly have stacked off on the turn.

As writing this, just read Hooligooner"s response...when the flush hits I would say that I don"t want him to fold, as I only lose to which as most of time I don"t think he has this (although in this instance it turns out he does).

[Roscopiko]

The only part of the hand you can really question is playing AJ from first position to a full table.

As you say the table was tight then this seems ok (maybe a bit risky) to have a pop. Don"t mind the continuation bet and its size and again most hands he either folds or can only flat call so a decent defensive bet here too. If he comes over the top you can drop it too. Like you say the majority of times you get through either pre flop or with the c-bet on the flop.

If you had missed the turn, you can probably get away from this without a live to fight another day with 10BB but once the flush comes on the turn its game over and u can"t reasonably do anything but stack off to his , just unlucky.

[Departed]

The only part of the hand you can really question is playing AJ from first position to a full table.

As you say the table was tight then this seems ok (maybe a bit risky) to have a pop. Don"t mind the continuation bet and its size and again most hands he either folds or can only flat call so a decent defensive bet here too. If he comes over the top you can drop it too. Like you say the majority of times you get through either pre flop or with the c-bet on the flop.

If you had missed the turn, you can probably get away from this without a live to fight another day with 10BB but once the flush comes on the turn its game over and u can"t reasonably do anything but stack off to his , just unlucky.

Yeah - makes sense. Thanks for the feedback.
It"s one of those occasions that I get deep in a tournament, and then end up losing all my chips in one hand, where I should probably have not got involved in first place. It"s happened a few times now, so I"m really trying to analyse these kind of hands to help in avoiding it.

In these tournaments the payouts are weighted so much for top few places, it"s hard to judge what level of risk that I should be taking in order to try and elevate myself up the leaderboard.

[duke3016]

I suspect the other guy had a bigger flush.  Not sure I would have open raised UTG on a full table with such a decent stack holding just AJo - a little unnecessary perhaps, and for me an insta-pass.

8th in chips (close to 20BB), full table, AJo UTG -- fold.

Risks have to be taken in order to win these things however I think you could have waited for a better spot to take that risk as you still had a healthyish stack.

[Jon MW]

If the table had been playing that tight, might a minimum raise have been possible to find out if anybody had a hand worth playing?

If they are playing a good tight aggressive game you may have even got a reraise preflop which would have been a good sign to fold.

It may have ended up the same, but on a very tight table towards the end of a tournament it can weed out anybody without good hands - if they weren"t playing that tight then I"d go with the fold preflop.

[hi_am_chris]

Maybe not a min raise i dont think you need to make it 3x to go. Agree with Amrn that raising AJo utg is questionable, espec when your probably going to have to play the hand out of position against hands that probably flop better

[MartinOwlMan]

I would like to think I would fold preflop but having read your analysis of how the table was playing I might have been tempted to raise pre and c-bet the flop.

From the turn onward, I can"t see the opponent calling a bet without the ace of hearts. My approach would have been to check-call. By checking I am giving a worse hand an opportunity to bluff, while if he has the ace of hearts then ok its just bad luck.

I don"t think the opponent has a set because nearly always the pot is getting raised on that flop if someone flops a set.

[AMRN]

your problem here is that everything you did AFTER the initial raise was perfectly normal, and in the scheme of things probably perfectly correct. You are out of position, and if you check the flop and someone bets, you can"t just flat call their bet, and you don"t really want to be check raising with air at this stage, so you have to fold...... therefore the c-bet was absolutely the right thing to do and follow through on your pf aggression.  Your next problem comes on the turn when you end up drawing for the 2nd nuts - now you are committed to the hand......

This is the reason why I would not have played AJo UTG at all preflop..... you have enough of a stack to find a better spot than this. As Duke says, risks have to be taken, but I would much prefer to take my risk with something like 45s IN position, as opposed to AJo OUT of position. 

When you play AJo UTG, you can easily fold it to any PF re-raise.... but if you get a flat caller, you are probably dominated by a bigger Ace, or behind to a pair, perhaps even dominated by a big pair. However, you have to make your c-bet to find out, and it now starts to get expensive. And if you hit the flop sideways as you did, you"ve effectively trapped yourself.

[Departed]

This is the reason why I would not have played AJo UTG at all preflop..... you have enough of a stack to find a better spot than this. As Duke says, risks have to be taken, but I would much prefer to take my risk with something like 45s IN position, as opposed to AJo OUT of position. 

Yeah I would go along with that. Although I felt that due to the tightness of the table, it seemed like a good idea at the time to raise it up and try take down the big blinds + antes, my stack at the time did not warrant such a risk. I could definitely have waited for a better spot.

I think I was partially frustrated with how tight the table had become (slightly surprising to me as the bubble had burst a while ago), which probably clouded my judgement some what, as I would certainly not play hands like AJ UTG in usual circumastances.

Anyway, in a way I"m pleased this hand came up, as it"s one I can learn from.

Thanks all for the comments.