AQ UTG... ???

[Aisthesis]

This is the one hand at a recent freeroll at the local casino where I really don't know about my play.

Here's the situation: The table has been pretty tight and is respecting my raises, although BB here doesn't respect ANYONE's raises. She keeps saying, "I just want to go home," and calling with crap.

Didn't have really any hands early but was able to survive reasonably well through folds, then picked up a few as the pressure started to mount.

In this one, I have T12,000 (starting stacks were T6,000), and the blinds are now 400/800, doubling every 15 minutes. My stack is pretty much average for the field at this point, maybe a little above average, so it's obvious that everybody has to move at this point, and moreso as time goes by.

Anyhow, in this situation, I pick up AQo UTG, certainly one of the better hands I've seen. I decide to raise it to 2,400, BB calls (all others fold) and bets out on a raggedy flop--no telling what she had, but any pair has me beat, so I fold.

Well, there are certainly worse plays than raising in this situation, but I almost think I like folding it as best option, and I guess limping also isn't out of the question.

Does anyone have strong opinions on this one? The two things that speak most strongly for the fold here, I think, are: 1) There are so many players left to act that I really do risk running into something pretty monstrous, and folding after raising hurts noticeably. 2) The way BB is playing, I'm probably going to have to improve in order to take down the hand (idiots are not the best people to steal blinds from).

[Dumb Snowman]

[Aisthesis]

She bet about 5,000 on the flop--and was always turning over something or other.

The advantage to my move was that if I do improve, I can double up (so 33%) as a rule. But the loss of the 2,400 hurt me. I don't think I can make the call without improvement, since she had me covered.

The really bad part of it was that I got AA not too long after that but was down to 7,500 by that time. One raise to 6,000 in front of me (KJ), then "she" calls that, and I move in for the rest and triple up. But had I been able to triple up with T10,000 rather than T7,500, I would obviously have been set up awfully well (the difference would have made me clear tournament big stack rather than just large medium).

On the other hand, when I got AQ, I obviously didn't know what kinds of cards I was going to hit, and that was about the best hand I'd seen the whole tourney up to that point.

The thing I really don't like about limping with AQ UTG in that situation is that I'm not really clear as to whether I'm limping with the intention of folding to a raise or with the intention of calling it. I feel like I still have enough stack not to really want to move in on AQ at that point--with my stack at something like 15xBB, I feel like I'd need more like AK or JJ-AA to really want to go all the way PF.

[Dumb Snowman]

Yeah, folding was probably the best option there.