AQs early in STT dilemma

thunder1276

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if its only a few hands into a STT SNG, you get AQs in the SB and there is a MP raise and no callers what do you think is better? Should you 3bet and risk getting 4bet or should you call to keep the pot small and hope up hit on the flop? I ended up calling and hitting top top for a decent pot but results dont really mean much.
 
TheKAAHK

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A HH would be better to more easily answer this question. But with what you provided, and since it's only a few hands in, flatting is a good play. AQ, even suited, is not a good hand to 3-bet without any reads on the villian.
 
thunder1276

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not really much happened in the hand. I was just wondering what your take on 3betting AQs out of position early in a tournament. I would have raised if I had position on the guy.
 
REI53

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Call is fine i think if you're playing an FR STG...if it was 6-max i would probabilly 3bet...
 
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Maybe I'm too nitty, but I fold AQs in SB vs MP raise. I just don't want to playing that hand OOP. I'd rather be the one who is opening the pot with AQs or be in position if I do call the raise.
 
thunder1276

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Maybe I'm too nitty, but I fold AQs in SB vs MP raise. I just don't want to playing that hand OOP. I'd rather be the one who is opening the pot with AQs or be in position if I do call the raise.

I would have ditched it immediatly on the flop if I didnt hit
 
Poker Orifice

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not really much happened in the hand. I was just wondering what your take on 3betting AQs out of position early in a tournament. I would have raised if I had position on the guy.

Why? Do you want them to fold out all of the hands you dominate? (ie. KQ AJ) All the hands you're going to get value from postflop.
Please explain why you'd 3bet early in a STT SNG with AQ.
 
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I could do almost anything here and be quite happy with it.

Fold: because of my poor position and I don't need to get embroiled in a potentially messy situation against an idiot's A7o.
Call: because I've got a decent hand and if I can call it down cheap with TPTK I may get a few chips. But if I hit the flop big there's a good chance of becoming chip leader.
Reraise: because it'll give me a better chance of taking it down on a dry flop and, on the off chance that anyone is paying attention, I'll create a particular image that I can exploit later.
All in: because I can pick up a few chips when the villain folds, get called by a load of hands I dominate, generate a maniac image for when I get dealt AA next hand.

To be honest I'll very rarely shove unless it is a small buy in and I have decided that I should really have gone to bed rather than sign up for another tourney.

Whether to get involved in this hand depends on your post flop skills. There are always a few players who will try it on with marginal hands early on, it much depends whether you know how to play against them.
 
blankoblanco

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Maybe I'm too nitty, but I fold AQs in SB vs MP raise. I just don't want to playing that hand OOP. I'd rather be the one who is opening the pot with AQs or be in position if I do call the raise.

AQs is too good a hand to fold against your average MP raising range even OOP, he'd have to have a super super tight range there (like AQ+ and mid pairs+) for me to not want to play it. you don't have to hit every flop, there will be some good flops to call with AQ high being the likely best hand as well as having backdoor draws for backup, there will also be some flops he doesn't want to cbet, etc. and when you do hit, the hand has really strong potential

it's not like some massive mistake to fold it early in a SnG but i do think it's too tight and might be a sign you're not giving yourself enough chances to get a big stack early in relatively low risk high reward situations. the late/bubble stages become so much easier and more profitable when you have chips to work with, and that's conducive to stealing more chips. this can increase your rate of 1st places significantly

(fwiw i would call, basically never 3bet)
 
thunder1276

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Why? Do you want them to fold out all of the hands you dominate? (ie. KQ AJ) All the hands you're going to get value from postflop.
Please explain why you'd 3bet early in a STT SNG with AQ.

Because Im likely to have the best hand. I guess im not thinking it through that much though. if he folds I make a whopping 150 but by seeing the flop cheaply I have potential to take down a large pot with small risk/loss if I dont hit. Thats part of my problem when I play. I get stuck in thinking that there is one play I should make with a specific hand. I dont think about how that affects the rest of the hand. I learned how to play chess recently and I guess this is how they are similar.
 
cjatud2012

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if its only a few hands into a STT SNG, you get AQs in the SB and there is a MP raise and no callers what do you think is better? Should you 3bet and risk getting 4bet or should you call to keep the pot small and hope up hit on the flop? I ended up calling and hitting top top for a decent pot but results dont really mean much.

It depends on your opponent. In some cases you can 3-bet because your opponent will call it with worse, or even 4-bet with worse. However I would say that those cases are the exception, not the rule. Generally if you 3-bet with AQ early in the tournament, if you're up against a tight opponent, whether they are a regular or a random, they will fold everything that you beat, raise everything that beats you, and very rarely flat call. So in that situation, we never re-raise, we choose between calling and folding. If his range has weaker aces in it, or KQ, then it is probably worth calling, even out of position, especially if we know they will likely go broke with top pair. Obviously there will be some pairs in our opponents range, but the thing is we usually will not stack an opponent who has an underpair when we hit the flop.

It all boils down to your opponent's range. What is he raising from the button there? Will he call with worse if I 3-bet (i.e. raise for value)? Perhaps he'll fold better if I 3-bet (usually not when you have AQ, but you still need to ask it, in case you choose to bluff with T9s, 22, or whatever)? If the answer to both of those is no, but your hand still has value against your opponent's range, then you should typically call.
 
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