Honestly - I see plenty you did wrong.
Not knowing what kind of draws the other guy had, stack size, etc ... hard to say if he was an idiot himself or not.
I make the rather big mistakes you made ... all the damn time.. unfortunantly.
Not even going to look at stack size ... really not material in limit, either you have the hand or not - nobody can boss others around by putting out a bet that takes you all in (unless you are on life support) ... so stack size is not all that important on a hand by hand case (if anything - in limit - you should be playing way tighter with a short stack)
- You have A2 suited.
- You bet and chase out 2 players.
- You are left with one player in.
- You keep betting based on a low draw, hoping to push the other player out.
- You miss, end with nothing for the high, and low is not possible.
My observations.
You have two decent chances to pull something out of this hand. An Ace high flush (with no pair on board), or A2 low.
I love both chances. Great to play that, we all wish for more obviously - but you have two possible nut hands.
... so why would you chase people out?
The number of people in the pot does not change the odds of you getting a flush or an A2 low. If either hits - you have the nuts. You want as many people throwing chips into the pot as possible either way.
Post Flop
You are heads up. You have a low draw... and of course the remote possibility that you get trips or two pair with the turn river (not sure if you had a backdoor flush possibility)
The best you can honestly hope for at this point is the low. The odds are the other guy is not going to fold. If he has any sort of stack, and anything at all for cards - he shouldn't fold.
... so you are betting with the
hope that you can just get your bet back - nothing more.
Where I come from ... thats called throwing chips away. Sometimes you will actually get your bet back, sometimes - you will not... so why on earth would you throw chips into the pot when the best case (likely) scenerio is you get what you threw in back, and worst case (likely) scenerio is that you get back nothing (or the low hits, and you push ... and you get back half of what you threw in)
You can not play limit with any sort of thoughts of how you play no limit. In no limit calling a small post flop bet can be stupid because the raiser can come back and bet you all in on the turn - meaning you just threw away that post flop call. That can not happen in limit. You can only push so hard - and if the person you are pushing against has enough of a stack to not even notice ......
Side Note: I always want at least 4 people in the pot when I am going for a low. If you end up with 2357 on board, and someone else has A5 - you push the low, split it - which with 4 people allows you to still break even on it.