NL single table tournament hand

[maplepig]

early stage everyone has about T1000.
I am in BB with AJ. Blind 30/60
one MP limper, one LP limper
210 in pot
Flop AJT rainbow
I bet 120
MP call, LP fold
Turn 3
I bet 120
MP call
river 3
I bet 60, MP call

As you can probably see, I am a total NL newbie. I pretty much have no clue about how much to bet. I'd like to get some advice on how and why bet in this situation. thanks,

[ohkanada]

If I choose to bet, I try to bet somewhere between 2/3 and the full pot. If that bet takes up much more than 40% of my stack I would go all-in.

So in your case betting 120 is slightly low. I might make it 150. On the turn there is 450 in the pot. Betting 120 is vastly underbetting the pot. On the river with 690 in the pot, a bet of 60 is really small.

Now of course you need to try to figure out what your opponent holds. This needs to be factored into the equation. Sometimes you might bet lower to allow them to get a cheap card. If you had KQ you could bet lower or check.

Ken Poklitar

[Myrtle]

I assume that this is an online NL single table? Given blinds/stack sizes & the 2 limpers, I would have re-raised 3x BB pre-flop in your position. Let's see what the limpers do then……….

If one of them has a real hand & comes over the top, you can lay it down if you choose without being crippled.

If either/both flat call your re-raise, the flop then determines what you will do. In this particular case it is probably an advantage that you get to act first.

With that kind of flop, I would highly likely push allin figuring that almost any holding (AA,JJ,TT) that the other 2 could possibly have had that connected with that particular flop would probably have caused them to play back at me preflop.

Of course, the QTs guy could be out there (online you get all kinds of amazing overcalls), but I'd risk the play with my strong top 2………

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

In a single-table, where three places get the money, you'd rather take a chance early. In other words, you'r rather finish 10th and buy in to another tourney now than get blinded out to finish 5th an hour from now.
You've got top 2 pair. You shouldn't fear the nuts on this flop, so your bet of 120 gives an open-ended straight draw correct odds to call with two cards to come. You don't want to do this. Go all-in on the flop to chase the draw away. You have to play aggressively in the early rounds. Who knows? Since you didn't raise pre-flop, you might get a call from a slowplayed KK or QQ and double up.

[maplepig]

Assuming that I bet 200 on flop, MP called
Turn is a Q or K, what do i do?
If turn is a 3 like it was, do I go all in or bet another 200? If I bet 200, and get raised, now what should I do?
thanks. I am totally clueless, any advice will be great help.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Maplepig:

First I'm not a no limit expert. But the way I see it the problem with your bet is that you are giving your opponent proper odds to call with many hands that you would prefer he either throw away or call a much bigger bet where his odds won't be correct.

On the river, the size of your bet should be impacted by how often you think he will call different size bets.

There are also some tournament considerations. Such as if your river bet will only leave him with a small number of chips and you think he will call that much, you might as well bet enough to have him covered.

Best wishes,
Mason