15 man tournament.
7 man table.

Stack Sizes:
HJ = 2000
CO = 3200
Me = 5000

Blinds: 25 - 50

Folded to HJ.
HJ open raises to 150.
CO calls.

I hold 8 8. on the Button
I reraise to 500

HJ calls.
CO calls.

Pot: 1575
Flop: 9 7 5

HJ checks.
CO checks.
I go all in (for a relevant bet of 2700).


=================

Reads:
HJ was Tight-Weak.
He was very readable.
And his fear of being knocked out made him very succeptable to being outplayed.
He would often fold the winning hand.

His preflop raise meant he had a good starting hand.
But before he called my reraise, he made it very clear that he did not have a monster (AA-QQ).
AK, AQ was most likely.

CO was a very smart player.
But he would always 3bet preflop with his strong hands (AA-TT, AK, AQ)
My strong read here was that he had a marginal hand (KQ, AT, 55, etc) and was hoping to take advantage and ouplay HJ postflop.

My thoughts:
Reading CO as having a weak hand, and HJ as being a weak-scared player, I thought I could pick up the pot preflop with a reraise. (Maybe my reraise wasn't big enough?)

When we do see a flop, I still like my hand.
CO probably has some overs or an underpair. Unless he happened to hit a set, I'm fine.
I don't consider his hand to be much of a threat.
Should I?

HJ probably missed with his Ace.
But even if he has a hand like TT, I truly believe that there is a strong chance that he would fold it to a big bet.

Since I consider HJ my main threat in this hand, I view my all-in bet primarily as a 1500 chip risk to win the 1575 pot.

How do you play this hand?
Was my flop move too aggressive?

Please advise.

--CM

Assuming you're on the button, I think 1k is a good bet; it'll do the trick.

I'm mostly worried about the CO. He would be expecting you to c-bet, so if he flopped a set or did some sort of nasty two-pair or flopped set with sooted nectars, he's looking for the c/r, not really worried about giving the HJ a free card. Losing over half your stack to him would be really unnecessary when he'll fold to a 1k bet if he missed.

HJ is interesting, but even if he checked an overpair, him-hawed to your bet and then still decided to call with JJ/10-10, it's only 500 more to call in a good -size pot, assuming you do lead for 1000. I love weak tights in NL cash games but they're tricky to play against in tourneys.

If you are going to 3bet this hand preflop then you must raise alot more. Your 3 bet is so small that they both must call and you are stuck playing a big pot with a mid pair against 2 villians which sucks. A preflop raise to 850 is much better and if it doesnt give you the pot outright preflop then at least it will get the pot HU for you with position. Your raise as far as i am concerned hurts you more than it helps you.

As played there is no need to overbet with the like this . You will only be called when you are way behind. Bet 1050 or so on the flop and know that if called you are way behind with your only clean out being a non spade 6. If the HJ will fold TT to a push then he will also fold it to a reasonable bet knowing that the rest of the money is going in on the turn.

With position i dont mind calling with this hand preflop and playing the hand out. I will 3 bet this about 40% of the time also, however i would make it a substantial bet with the aim of picking up the pot outright preflop and at the very worst plat the pot HU with position.