derSchwartz said:

This was a $2 rebuy small MTT, winner took about $75, top ~9 got paid, ~17 people remained when I busted.

These two hands were not my bust hands, but they were the turning point as far as both my chipstack and my image at the table. NE2WONTDO is the villain, I have 188 hands, VPIP 30, PFR 8, Limp 26, 3bet 2.2, Cbet 57, Steal 10, Fold to Steal 60, Resteal 0%. I think he likes to limp/call to see flops.  He kinda destroyed me.  Or maybe I made mistakes and he blundered his way into benefiting from them. Either way, let's see how I could have avoided these two hands:

1)

Merge Network $150 Gtd – [+R] No Limit Hold'em Tournament – t150.00/t300.00 Blinds + t30.00 – 8 players – View hand 2359405
TournamentPokerEdge.com Hand History Converter

NE2WONTDO (MP1): BB = 12.6, t3767
Hero (MP2): BB = 39.6, t11887
toosilent (CO): BB = 58.0, t17406
Yubway74 (BTN): BB = 31.3, t9381
oldmatt (SB): BB = 35.8, t10752
hookpilot2 (BB): BB = 49.7, t14904
BobJX2 (UTG): BB = 22.3, t6679
rswilson (UTG+1): BB = 33.7, t10120

Pre Flop: (t690) Hero is MP2 with 4 4
2 folds, NE2WONTDO calls t300

He likes to limp and see flops.  I don't have to be afraid of his range, but he won't go away too easily.  I want to isolate him, hopefully even make him fold but I also don't want to make the pot too huge.

Hero raises to t900.00, 4 folds, NE2WONTDO calls t600

I probably should have sized bigger to get that preflop fold.  No tragedy yet.  But then:

(I'm not sure if I want to play a hand like 44 here and if I do then I probably just limp behind as I would hate raising and having to fold to a 3b behind (which might happen) or if the limper ships over my raise. In these instances you then are probably committed to calling the 12bbs shove or have to fold to a 3 bettor. I think I either limp or fold)

Flop: (t2490) 9 J Q (2 players)

NE2WONTDO checks

I gave this a moment's thought, but unfortunately the thought was “he missed his ace.”

(the problem with this thought is that I don't think you are ranging the limper properly. He could be limping with a huge range that includes suited connectors, high cards but not premiums, high suited cards, pairs etc. On average this flop probably smashes his range. If you are going to bet then I would make it about 1/3rd pot maximum allowing you to fold if he ck/raises. I would probably check as played as wouldn't feel a bet is ever getting through here)

Hero bets t3000.00, NE2WONTDO calls t2837 all in

I made a hasty decision here and probably needed to just think another second in order to realize I was doing badly against any big card had except AK. Also his range includes the whole middle portion of the deck.  I think I should have basically check/folded with maybe a turn or river 1/3-2/5 pot bluff if he checked forever. 

(you have answered your own question here I think. Probably the key thing to take is to think about the hand a bit deeper before action)

2)

Fast forward through a few hands of ok play, one other mistake I won't talk about here, and then:

Merge Network $150 Gtd – [+R] No Limit Hold'em Tournament – t200.00/t400.00 Blinds + t40.00 – 8 players – View hand 2359411
TournamentPokerEdge.com Hand History Converter

NE2WONTDO (SB): BB = 19.6, t7859
Hero (BB): BB = 19.4, t7760
toosilent (UTG): BB = 41.5, t16586
Yubway74 (UTG+1): BB = 20.9, t8351
oldmatt (MP1): BB = 38.1, t15252
hookpilot2 (MP2): BB = 34.9, t13944
BobJX2 (CO): BB = 17.2, t6894
rswilson (BTN): BB = 20.6, t8250

Pre Flop: (t920) Hero is BB with A Q
6 folds, NE2WONTDO calls t200,

Again with his limp/calling.  I'll happily take this down or see a flop.

Hero raises to t1300.00, NE2WONTDO raises to t7819 all in,

(Blind v blind this is the perfect outcome for you. His limp / reraise could be pretty light especially if you have been aggressive as you say plus also you showed down the 44 hand earlier which suggests to villain you can raise limps light. This is an instant call in my opinion)

So now he limp/shoves the SB.  I tanked here. He had J9 on the previous hand when he limp/called a handful of times before.  I don't know if he was paying attention, but I was being very aggressive throughout the game.  If he noticed that, he could have easily anticipated that I might raise his limp, whether I've got a good hand or an ok hand.  I felt I could beat this guy but wanted to put him to more decisions and not just call my chips away, hoping to run pure if he's got rags and hoping to suck out if he's doing this with QQ+

1 fold

What do you guys think?

Several hands later I busted while squeezing AJ and the middle player decided to call me down wth A3. I don't think this would have happened if my image wasn't so damaged by these hands.

(Don't worry about your image being tarnished in this spot. It looks like you used it unwittingly to your advantage. The key thing to do when you have been aggro and people start noticing is to switch gears to playing value hands that you are happy to go with as they can and will remember your aggro tendencies and get it in light sometimes. That happened here and although you got a bad beat clearly you had your chips in with huge equity)
 

Thanks for reading guys.  Have a good evening.

He beat me to it, but basically when you 3 bet, I think you should either do it as a pure bluff against an aggressive late position raiser or as a hand that you are willing to 5-bet in the case that your opponent 4-bets.  I know that this was not a 3-bet; however, generally my requirements for raising a limper are the same as a 3-bet.  IMO I think the absolute worse possible hand to raise with when you have 20+ BB is a low pocket pair.  The reason for this is that when your OP 4-bets, you will be forced to fold.  Raising with a low pocket pair basically turns your hand into a pure bluff.  If your OP limps you can just limp behind, hoping to set-mine; however, given that OP is only 12.6 BB deep (you really need 20+ BB to set-mine) that may not be optimal.  Folding is also OK.  There's no rule that you have to play every hand.  Personally, when someone limps I like limping behind with a wide range of hands, including low pocket pairs, despite the fact that I rarely open limp myself.  Also, once the flop came that board is way to straighty to do anything but check-fold…move on to the next! 

As far as the AQs hand goes, what was your reasoning behind not getting it in?  AQs is basically the 5th best hand in poker and your OP has a wide range here.  Alternatively, given that you were the BB, and no action was behind you, you could have just checked and seen a flop.  If you hit the flop your hand would be underrepresented.  Or, in the alternative, if you missed the flop you would be losing the minimum.  Not to be a ****, but raising-fold is the worst possible line to take with AQs imo.  With a hand like AQs or KQs that actually plays pretty well post-flop but I may or may not be willing to jam pre I like to just flat or check my BB.  I'm pretty LAG generally so when I don't raise I know for a fact that my opponent's put me on absolutely nothing at all!  That accomplishes three objectives: 1) Pot control with a good but not lock hand; 2) Seeing a cheap flop for the minimum; 3) Under-repping my hand and possibly trapping a worse player with superior post-flop skills.    

If it were me I would have limped-folded with the 44 and checked with AQs.  No harm in seeing cheap flops. 

The very fact that most people will never check there is precisely why I would check there.  If you think about it, if you don't want to get it in then why not just check and underrep your hand?  You're not actually losing anything, you get to see a flop, and if you hit I gaurantee you can bust your opponent given that you didn't raise pre.  Conversely, you could just jam.  But my main point is raise-folding is never an option here.

derSchwartz said:

On that note, though, I do have a question, wiz.

As far as low pocket pairs being bad to raise with 20+ BB, would you say that if we have more like 12-15 BB that low pocket pairs are still good for shoving, perhaps even over a limper who has a history of limp/folding?   (Not that this villain had a history of limp/folding, but suppose a villain does have that history..)

In that case, ship it!  What better hand could you possibly be waiting for with 12BB?

*The reason why I ship 44 with 12 BB and not AQs is that 44 is a strong hand preflop but unless you hit a set is a terrible hand post flop.  AQs is the opposite, a good hand post-flop, but something that you can easily get away when you dont hit.