I play NL tournaments online and at local bars regularly. My play varies in these tournaments depending on chipstack, and number of players remaining.

Last night I was at a local bar tournament. There were approximatly 20 players remaining of 60. I had a chipstack of 21,000 and the blinds were 500/1,000. My stack is about medium for the tournament. Not large, but not shortstacked.

I am on the dealer button in this particular hand. The hand went as follows:

Player 3 fold
Player 4 fold
Player 5 all-in 3,500
player 6 fold
player 7 call 3,500 (he has about 8K in chips remaining after the call)
Player 8 (me) has a 4d5d and I call the 3,500
Player 1 fold
Player 2 fold

The flop is perfect. 2c,3h,6d

player 7 moves all-in for 8,000
I call and flip over the nuts.

To make a long story short player 7 is a decent player and a friend of mine. He gets very upset at me for playing 4d,5d in a raised hand.

I know the hand ended up great for me, but was this a bad play? I typically play very tight in NL tournaments during the first hour, then I vary my play during the next 3 hours depending on chipstack. In this instance I was prepared to lose the 3,500 if the flop did not show significant promise., but I also saw the opportunity that both other players were sitting on overcards, and the low suited connectors might pay serious divendends. At this point in the tournament I also was looking to win a big hand or 2 and play tight until the final table.

What is everyones stance on low suited connectors? Play, dont play, play sometimes?

I don't think your stacks are deep enough to make playing 5-4 here profitable. I probably fold pre-flop in your situation.

Your implied odds here are marginal. Using a very liberal range for the short stack and a fairly tight range for the other large stack I get about 27% wins hot and cold.

Your implied odds, assuming you will get the $8000 if you hit, and that you have no more investment if you dont hit, is just above 4:1.

The "no more investment" assumption is very aggressive though. It means either you hit on the flop, or are able to check it to the turn or river if necessary.

Interesting to note that the "Check it to the river" assumption is most likely realized when the other player and you are "cooperating" to maximize the chances of knocking out the other player. That points out that if there is a monster draw possible, a cooperation play might give free cards that come back to haunt the player that starts out in the lead.

I would probably have folded there because

(1) The stack sizes of the players involved as with suited connectors, you're hoping to hit a big hand which will pay off big since you're usually behind. You're not really getting those implied odds since both opponents are relatively short stacked.

(2) The other problem I see is that the blinds are still to act behind you - you didn't mention their stacks but if either of the blinds had a decent stack, they could come over the top to try to pick up all the dead money at which point you'd have to fold your suited connector and be out the your 3,500 chips.

I don't like your call. However, tell your friend that if he does not want to get calls behind him that he needs to move all-in instead of calling. Otherwise the risk he took was that a big stack would "fool around" for $3,500 in chips.

What did he have?

thanks everyone for the advice. He had 77 and the original guy who moved all in had KJo