From a $1.20 STT. BB hadn't been very active up to this point - no notes on him, which means he's probably a pretty tight, kosher player. The other villain had ealier push-reraised with AJ and later called a raise with AJ preflop, and postflop had called a flop bet and then pushed the turn with TP-Jack kicker. MP was a pretty loose player, calling raises with a fairly wide range, and had lucked out postflop, but had led/raised a couple of times with TP hands. My cards were complete junk prior to this - in fact, this was only the 3rd or 4th flop I had seen thus far.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Hero (t1020)
SB (t2495)
BB (t1010)
UTG (t1491)
MP (t4119)
CO (t3365)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, Q.
1 fold, MP calls t50, CO calls t50, Hero raises to t300, 1 fold, BB calls t250, MP calls t250, CO calls t250.

Flop: (t1225) J, Q, 7 (4 players)
BB checks, MP checks, CO bets t100, Hero ???

I figured my PF raise was good enough to narrow the field, so I was quite surprised to get 3 callers PF. Flop was as good as I could ask for, but how do you play this with one of the callers leading with a donkbet and 2 other villains in the hand?

Meh, I don't like it, but I just shove it in here - what is CO trying to say with that ridiculous bet, always confusing to me? I have no idea what hand anyone has in this hand.

well, considering that you probably don't have enough chips to make any decent hands fold, i would just call and maybe pick up a little extra value or in the best possible scenario triple up...but that's just me, shoving is obv good also, and you can't fold either way

Welcome to the $1.20's!

So you'd vote for pushing rather than calling to see what the others do?

Why would you do anything but shove this flop?

no way im getting away from this with your stack... i shove and hope i win...

With 3 people calling my raise PF there are 4 hands within their range that I'm behind on the flop: AA, KK (at this level players don't always reraise with these), QJ, and JJ. Not enough reason to be careful here?

You don't have room to be careful.

If you had a 100 BB stack, you could make some "plays". But your raise barely even covers half the pot.

Stop being weak tight.

You ARE NOT going to win every SNG, and you'll win more often, by not being afraid to go bust.

You are a wise one. You are too short here to mess around. At his low a level(which is where I play), you could be donk bet with most any pair and plenty of draws. You are way ahead of a micro limit players range. You could see QJ or 77(most likely), JJ(sometimes), AA-QQ(rarely but more often then in higher stakes) while you can see alot of Qx, Jx, a bit of AK, 7x, KT, T9, 98, TT-88 some 66- and of course the occassional donkey bluff.

If you call, you are going to let the other donks see a free card. Just get it in here. You are ahead of so much and can't mess around.

The min bet on the flop is what me and my friends like to call a "******" bet. It's either a weak attempt to steal by a totally clueless donk, or a weak attempt to get value out of a (perceived) monster. There's no way anyone who is a decent player makes that bet with anything, so you know it's one of the two. Anyway just shove and hope it holds up. I probably will.

1/3 of your stack is in the pot and you flopped 'top top' (this phrase needs more use). Shove the rest in right now plzplzplzplz.

I wasn't concerned about the donklead from CO at all, I was more concerned about the players to act behind me. Either one of them could be setting a trap, most likely BB (since MP limped PF).

Nevertheless, you'll all be happy to hear that I did push-raise for the exact reasons mentioned in your responses. BB and CO both called, and all I remember is BB flipping over JJ for the set (I don't have the HH with me to tell you what CO was playing).

I've been reading my HoH lately and this hand got me wondering if this was one of those situations where I should have been more careful because of the potential action behind me.

On another note, in one of my other threads a poster made reference to this hand and questioned my aggressive PF raise with AQs in this situation. Given that the blinds are still relatively low and there are 2 limpers ahead, he stated that he might think about calling and seeing a cheap flop. Thoughts on the PF play?

You are too short to worry about getting trapped. BB is a donk for not pushin pre IMO. Just bad timing. There is no way you can assume that JJ is out right now.
PF i can see a mix of calls and raises here with position.

IMO, building the pot is better here, so you can get it all in when you hit, and make more monies.

And what about when you miss which is a greater percentage of the time. You have 1000 chips at 25/50, two limpers and you raise to 300 which is 30% of your stack with AQ. Sure, you probably have the best hand now (normally when you have a healthy stack size raising for value is the play), barring a baby pair, but at these limits you generally know people aren't folding pre after a limp. I think limping and winning a smaller pot on a hit flop is better than risking 30% of your stack preflop with an almost zero percent chance of taking the pot down preflop. We are putting a lot of our stack at risk, not to mention if we miss the flop...how do we play it postflop? Spew more chips on a C-bet? Pray to get two folds? Check fold down to 700 chips?

BTW, as played, I'm definitely getting all my money in on the flop. He hit a set, too bad, start up another one.

I think you would be right if these limpers were highly unlikely to fold to a raise, but once we're up to 25/50 players even at $1.20 are more likely to fold to a sizeable raise after limping. I would be a lot more cautious about AQs in the first level, but at level 3 with position and only 2 limpers in front, I think aggression is warranted here. I was completely shocked to get the action I got on this hand. More often than not this play will either take the pot right there or narrow the field to one villain.