Hi all im new to these forums but have been reading them for a while, i have been decently succesful playing sitngos for the last couple of years and just now have really started to have some success. I have noticed im not good at playing some of the more difficult hands op. Was wondering how do you guys like to play hands like a9o-ajo and k10o,kjo. Especially out of position i find myself wondering what to do. I also think that i have become a little to tight and have really stopped bluffing as much as i used to, how tight do you guys think is to tight. I sometimes will fold right down to the bubble because i get garbage hands, is that to tight or should i be making some more moves?

Learn ICM push/fold. There are times you can push ATC based on stack sizes and peoples propensity to call.

In terms of early play when you are still relatively deep stacked, playing tight is right. Muck those A9o-AJo, KTo-KJo hands from EP. In SnGs, the value of winning chips is less than the value of losing an equivalent amount of chips. This means that your decisions need to be more than slightly +EV to justify taking the chance.

A big +1 to WurlyQ

Originally Posted by WurlyQ

Learn ICM push/fold. There are times you can push ATC based on stack sizes and peoples propensity to call.

In terms of early play when you are still relatively deep stacked, playing tight is right. Muck those A9o-AJo, KTo-KJo hands from EP. In SnGs, the value of winning chips is less than the value of losing an equivalent amount of chips. This means that your decisions need to be more than slightly +EV to justify taking the chance.

I'm a great icm push/fold player, im a very very good bubble player all in all i know when to push, i was more talking about early on. Like 9-7 players in, good to know ajo is foldable though.

There are many hands that have a pretty lookto them, but you have to learn to throw them in the muck

One thing that jumps out is that you're talking about playing potentially troublesome hands out of position. It seems like you'd want to avoid doing this so you won't face as many difficult and marginal decisions. You want your opponents to have to make them rather than you.

Arjonius has hit the nail on this one.

Bin them, you will loose the most chips with these hands as it's very hard to let them go when you hit top pair etc while your more tighter starting player is playing better kickers and in postion of you.

Early i tend to just call with AJo to see whats going on, however I would probably fold A 9.

Consensus here, which I agree with, is to muck all the hands you describe in EP/OP. My caveat will be that later in the tourney, with most of the players still sitting, you can play these hands if you feel real good about your reads. So 5 levels into a STT, assuming you have been watching, you might know what you can get away with, whereas in the 1st and 2nd level, you have no clues. If you feel good about your ability to muck 2 overcards without any grief, then limping along will sometimes (+/-EV ???????) provide profit, but more often will just leak your stack away.

Reads will dictate what and when, and who will reap the benefits of your skilz.......

Seems like letting go of these hands in ep will keep me out of trouble which is what i have been doin, good to know that it isn't playing "too tight"