22 left in a $4.40 180 SNG.. I'm 6th out of 22 left.. Button is loose as a goose, and it's folded to him on the button, he pops it standard.. I wake up with AQ..

PokerStars (8 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: neck1 (14698 in chips)
Seat 2: JacobV76 (10083 in chips)
Seat 3: Cappy37 (13890 in chips)
Seat 4: Tibal (6295 in chips)
Seat 6: slimfast (21908 in chips)
Seat 7: sunfire2 (5845 in chips)
Seat 8: Wild12000 (3485 in chips)
Seat 9: DSPZ (11420 in chips)

Cappy37 posts 150 (SB). Tibal Posts 300 (BB)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, Q.
5 folds, Button raises 600 to 900, Hero raises 1800 to 2700...


Standard? Blinds are 150/300 ante 25.. I have an M of 20.. I can easily fold my way into the money, or I can pick off this weak button raise.

Seems like a solid raise to me. I would have probably raised a little more being OOP...maybe to 3500-4k to make sure he folds.

If he reraises, are you folding? I don't mind the resteal, but I think it's an easy fold if/when he shovels. No sense flipping coins at this point - you have a decent stack. You're either a coinflip in the ~60/40-40/60 range, or you're possibly way behind AK, AA. KK, etc.

for me it depends on what you mean by "loose", does that mean his calling range for the re-raise is very wide? if so, i'm not re-raising here, i don't want to play a big pot OOP with A-Q...if his calling range for the re-raise is about normal, then i def like re-raising

I raise more than the pot (to ~3200), because I don't really want to see a flop.

Obv repop here, I make it 3.1-3.5K probs b/c as someone said earlier I don't really want to see a flop here.
With repopping we need to decide however what to do if he shoves, which I'm guessin is what comes next since I'm fairly sure this is completely standard repop...

By "loose" I mean that the Button raiser has gotten that stack in the last orbit thx to Q-10 and J-8... Looooooose.

I had a solid read on him.. I honestly was not concerned with him in the least, the only thing I was concerned with was him going up against me 40/60 with something like K-9 or whatever.

Here's my area of concern: If I was dealt AJ, I toss it and take a swig of soda. I'm 4 out of the money with an M over 20, I got the BB behind me, and the bunching factor seemingly working "in my favor". I don't see reraising "more" than to 3x his bet as an option in this situation, because no matter the read, tossing more than 20% of my chips into a pot on the bubble with AQ just seemed like suicide with a guy likely to call me with ATC. I was seriously pondering a flat call, and then use first to act to make a bet of 1200 into a 2100 pot on the flop.

I have a tight image, I'd played just under 22% of the pots to that point, and won over 75% w/ or w/out showdown. I had stolen 2 blinds in the entire tournament (I had a player to my left bust 3 hands prior who had not folded his BB to any raise since the tourney *started* and was running hot). All was set up for me to get into the money and then gamble a little.

Why am I sitting here pondering playing AQ on the bubble? I'm just as excited getting called making a move with 9-8 as AQ, should I be tightening up to 99-AA + AK for the last couple orbits before we hit the money?

And should I let the cat out of the bag and point to the size of my raise, the almost certainty of the button folding, and then the stack size of the big blind? Do I really need to post results? I'm not here for sympathy, I've gotten deep in a few MTTs recently and always seem to be getting crippled in great situations with AJ/AQ/TT etc... The bottom line is with less than 10% of my stack size in the pot, am I really wanting risk over 20% of my stack on seemingly loose tables to get lagtards to fold PF?

A good reason to raise here is that you are playing to come minimum top 5......that's where the real money is.

You want to put yourself in a position to win the whole tournament.

Oh....and you have him covered....he'll be more worried about your raise than you will