AA - KK - QQ - JJ - AK (suited) - AQ (suited)

[Pawlowski]

I'm always struggling on how to start with those cards on different tours.
What do you think it is the best strategy considering:
- first 30 hands of a tour
- having half of the people in the tour
- having 10% of the people in the tour

And as a second view - same question considering all positions in the table.

Do you play same way considering stage of the tour or not.
And how about position, what is your strategy...

Thanks for your inputs

 

[Hermus]

It makes more sense to consider stack size in big blinds. I'm no tournament expert so keep that in mind. When playing very deep I stack with AA and KK and call the 5-bet with AKs. QQ, JJ and AQs are 4-bet (maybe 5-bet if you have position) calls.

When playing 100 bb deep the same rules apply but I also stack pre-flop with AKs. Somewhere around 30-40 bb I believe you can also 4-bet shove QQ, JJ and AQs. Anywhere in 15-20 bb or below all these hands are open shoves.

There might be some situations on the bubble or around big pay jumps with other people close to busting where the correct play is not to play these hands, but I'm not really sure how to evaluate those. Best to study those spots with an ICM tool like ICMizer.