Hand 1 with AA - lets play some poker kids!

[pokerstudAA]

Fade in: Hero finally has some free time and bankroll to spend on the MTT circuit. Hero prepares mentally and is ready to rock the house. (roll background montage with sweet hardrocking rocking poker music) Fade out.

Fade in: 1st hand of party $30 tournament - 680 entrants. Hero is second position off the blind. True to his super-cheesy poker name, the first hand hero picks up is A /images/graemlins/club.gifA /images/graemlins/heart.gif.


Hmmmm.....hero thinks, "All these MTT whack-jobs like to push alot of chips with marginal hands in the first hand and frequently make terrible plays. I know I can stick 1 or 2 players for a big pile of chips on this first hand. I think my plan is to limp reraise."

Hero limps. A middle position player limps and the cut off min-raises to 30. Folded back to hero. Hero raises to 200. Limper folds. Min-Raiser calls.

Flop: J /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 8 /images/graemlins/club.gif 5 /images/graemlins/spade.gif

Hero bets the pot - 400. All-in from raiser. Hero calls.

Good Play on someone for all their chips on the first hand? Might as well double up immediately - right or is this one of those times to let skill take over in the long run? Do I find myself to actually be the MTT whack-job for limping aces that I referenced earlier?

[zaxx19]

For the music might i suggest "Luck be a Lady Tonight" the Dean Martin version....

HE FLOPPED SET-O-JAXX??

What are the starting stacks on part-o-fish?? If they are 1500 i reraise too 375....Like you said they are whack jobs let them me whack jobs then......

[nightlyraver]

Good move IMHO - I feel that only a bad player w/ AJ would make a min. raise and then call a big re-raise. The only hands that are beating you on the flop are JJ,88,55,J8, and J5. The last two possibilities are extremelt unlikely, pocket 8's and especially pocket 5's generally don't min. raise. That only leaves JJ out of a possible AA,KK,QQ,JJ,TT,99,AJ and maybe AK. You split once, are drawing dead once and are dominating 6 times. Seems like a clear +EV to me. Really no way you could fold here. Also, this is the first hand so you don't really have and time investment vested into the hand, just the buy-in. For a greater explenation of what I mean by this, see my post on World Poker Tour, etc. re: transaction costs.

One more thing - it's probably not a good idea to use your handle from party on this message board. I happen to know who you are and have played against you in at least 2 tourneys. Now, there is a big "watch for the limp, re-raise from EP w/ AA" tag attached to your name /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[pokerstudAA]

I have been planning on changing my party handle - especially for pokertracker data-mining reasons. But in general I am not all that concerned with people picking up on the different strategies I use - you must mix up your game for those exact reasons. Chances are (and I am the gambling type) that you and I will not be sitting at the same table - there are just so many players.

[esbesb]

You didn't lose because you limped. After all, what you wanted to happen pre-flop basically happened.

If everyone else had also limped and he beat you with 2-pr., that would be a different story.

You lost the hand because AA is going to occasionally lose is all.