On the wrong side of 74

[Claw75]

Still not quite sure how I should play these situations.  Was I right to call the all-in, or should I have folded? 

PokerStars Game #3946516774: Tournament #19609453, Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2006/02/12 - 09:08:41 (ET)
Table '19609453 1' Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: point921 (1480 in chips)
Seat 2: suegn (3000 in chips)
Seat 4: golfster56 (1640 in chips)
Seat 5: UNCacg (1760 in chips)
Seat 6: jpt29 (1360 in chips)
Seat 7: Clairep75 (1480 in chips)
Seat 8: Bubbie1978 (1320 in chips)
Seat 9: K9sixtwo (1460 in chips)
Clairep75: posts small blind 10
Bubbie1978: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Clairep75 [ ]
K9sixtwo: folds
point921: folds
suegn: folds
golfster56: calls 20
UNCacg: calls 20
jpt29: calls 20
Clairep75: raises 20 to 40
Bubbie1978: calls 20
golfster56: calls 20
UNCacg: calls 20
jpt29: calls 20
*** FLOP *** [ ]
Clairep75: bets 20
Bubbie1978: calls 20
golfster56: calls 20
UNCacg: calls 20
jpt29: raises 1300 to 1320 and is all-in
Clairep75: calls 1300
Bubbie1978: folds
golfster56: folds
UNCacg: folds
*** TURN *** [ ] []
K9sixtwo said, "vnh"
*** RIVER *** [ ] []
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Clairep75: shows [ ] (two pair, Tens and Sevens)
jpt29: shows [ ] (a full house, Sevens full of Fours)
jpt29 said, "ty"
jpt29 collected 2900 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2900 | Rake 0
Board [ ]
Seat 1: point921 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: suegn folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: golfster56 folded on the Flop
Seat 5: UNCacg folded on the Flop
Seat 6: jpt29 (button) showed [ ] and won (2900) with a full house, Sevens full of Fours
Seat 7: Clairep75 (small blind) showed [ ] and lost with two pair, Tens and Sevens
Seat 8: Bubbie1978 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 9: K9sixtwo folded before Flop (didn't bet)

[12barblues]

Medium pairs out of position as you are here are very tricky to play in a multiway pot.  What are you going to do when an overcard or two comes on the flop? 

If this is the kind of low buy-in MTT that I play in, you have two choices pre-flop:

1. Blast as many of the three limpers and the BB out of the pot as you can.  This is difficult as it needs something like a raise to 8 x BB or more and may well not succeed anyway with the blinds still a tiny proportion of the stacks.  My experience is that the gamblers may well call anyway and the good players will wonder if an overbet is a sign of weakness, not strength.  The pot is hardly worth these extreme measures in my view.

2. Flat call and play it for set value, which would be my preference at this early stage of the tournament.

The minimum raise does nothing, as you saw when everyone called.

The minimum bet on the flop doesn't achieve much either.  Your opponents are going to at least call a 20 bet with almost anything that resembles a hand so it is little different from a check. 

Personally, I wouldn't mess around with this flop and with 4 opponents to act behind me.  Check and fold for me. 

It may be interesting to see if others would bet out 100 to 150, representing a 7 although I don't see how that fits with your preflop min raise.

When your opponent goes all in with a massive overbet (a truly horrible way of playing a flopped FH when there are all sorts of hands that could be milked), you have to think you are probably miles behind to a 7 who is scared of the straight and flush draw possibilities.  Even if the all in is an aggressive flush draw, there may well be a slow played 7 still to act behind you.  I would simply fold with little damage done to your stack and live to fight another day.

For the avoidance of doubt as I haven't seen you on this particular board before, it is only right to tell you that I am not one of Blonde's 'big guns'.  Anything I say is only IMHO. Indeed, there is a fair chance it's anywhere between arguable and complete b@##&cks. 

[thetank]

12 bar blues is spot on. His advice usualy is and IMHO he is a big gun when it comes to doling out useful information on the playing of hands. (His hair could do with a wash though)

If one of the limpers did not have the 7 then there are still many cards in the deck to hurt your hand.  Say you're up against JKo AQo 56o and 8h9h. Against these hands individually you're a favourite. Against them all you're a big underdog. You want to charge them more to draw than 20 on the flop if you think your hand is best.

As for calling the all-in.

He's either drawing or you are. For arguments sake lets say there's a 50:50 chance of each. If he's behind he's got many more outs than you do if he's ahead. What his means is that you'll get dikked in the long run. The pot odds are nowhere near enough to compensate for this.
When you factor in that one of the 3 players between you might be slow-playing a flopped monster it makes this fold even clearer.

When your bet is raised in a multiway pot, be more inclined to believe the raiser and lay down than if you were in a pot with just one opponent. He didn't just raise you, he raised the other 3 players aswell. It's just not worth it to call sometimes.

[Claw75]

Thanks for the advice guys.  One thing I've really not learned to do yet is look at the size of the pot before weighing up my options, and I really should.  With hindsight, even if I thought I was ahead at that point I couldn't discount the possibility that the opponent had two overcards and could have hit a high top pair on the turn or the river.  If I'd taken that into account along with the size of the pot I could have cut my losses quite dramatically and waited for a better hand.

Thanks again - I really appreciate this kind of helpful critique whilst I'm learning the beautiful game (hope that's not copyrighted!)