AK and SNG's, I have alot of questions and no answers.

My question evolves around the problem of playing AK in 5$ SNG's, when the blinds are low. Last night I played in about 10 SNG's and was dealt big slick or two high cards e.g. .AQ AJ s , several times when the blinds were low, generally levels 1 through 4. I would raise preflop , about 3 or 4 BB ( might I add cautiously with AQ and very cautiously with AJ) Anyway I think I the flop missed me almost every time. It would generally be an uncoordinated flop such as 7 4 9 rainbow. When only 1 or 2 people called my initial preflop raise, I threw in about a half pot bet. To see where I stand. Nearly every time this situation occurred one or both players would call or raise my bet on the flop! Leaving me completely befuddled as what to do on the turn. It seems as though the players at these 5$ will almost refuse to lay down any hand on the flop!I don’t know what to do in order to combat this! One of my theories is that if I miss the flop, when the blinds are low, I should just check/fold. I think that it is ill advised to put a lot of chips in the pot when the blinds are low and I only have over cards, not to mention I correctly executed exactly two bluffs last night.

So my questions are as follows, remember I am only playing in 5$ buy in SNGs

1. When the blinds are low and I miss the flop with 2 big overs, after I made preflop raise, should I just check /fold?

2. It seems like these guys call my bets on the flop no matter what! Should I stop my continuation betting?

3. Is it always ill advised to try and muscle out pots, when the blinds are low?

4. What do you guys do when you miss the flop with 2 overs?

5. I have discovered and now assume(at least so far) that coming over the top is not effective against these players at all. Every time I come over the top they make me fend for my whole stack, have you guys found similar patterns and are these assumptions correct?


Any help would be much appreciated
Thanks a lot,
Al

The major thing to keep in mind is that you have to play against your opponents. These lower buyin games can be pretty loose. I usually see a couple of all-ins in the first level or two. Stay away from all that. Just play the cards given to you early on. You'll need every chip later when you get to the bubble. When your opponents are loose, play tight, when they are tight, play aggressive.

1. Against more than 1 opponent in the early levels. Absolutely.
2. If you notice this is happening, stop the cont. bets. Try to get a read on who is a maniac or not. Early on, players could have anything. They play a lot of crap, and a crap flop might hit them.
3. I personally like to stay away from making moves early on. There's no need to get fancy.
4. If there is more than one player, check/fold, unless you have a better read. These guys will call all-ins with draws, so be careful. Save your playing for the bubble.
5. These players are fairly loose and call a lot of draws. I have more success coming over the top on the river if they haven't shown a lot of strength.

Keep in mind you are talking about just a few situations, but in general early on in the low limits, players are very loose. You'll need to stay pretty tight to beat them. I don't bet a lot early on without a monster hand. The basic strategy is to stay tight and try to double up as the favorite on the bubble.

Thanks for the reply. I needed the help. Anyone have anymore suggestions?

[nova]

I know a few friends that depending on the texture of the flop as well as the number of opponents that they'd check the flop from early position, even though they were the PF raiser. I like to mix it up, I understand the frustration of why they didn't toss away their hand to a cont. bet. "how could this flop have hit them" sometimes is answered in a strange way.

One thought would be that if you miss it, that you check from early position to see what they do. This keeps the pot smaller and doesn't open yourself up to a reraise. Where at higher levels you could be looking at a set, you could just be looking at a trash hand or an inside straight draw (or a made hand). To succeed at these tourneys you have to win with AK as well as beat AK. If they are wild, avoid firing one more barrel if you have a read. If not, keeping the pot smaller will tell more about their hands depending on their actions.

[valenzuela]

1)yes.
2)yes.
3)yes.( that means dont do fancy plays!)
4)fold.
5)ure not making someone fold his crap that happens to beat urs.

[Uppercut]

Stop playing AQo and AJo in the first couple of levels. (Unless your first in from late position.)

Thanks to all your replies guys. They will all help me out a bunch. I needed to hear all this stuff.

Thanks again,
Al

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Stop playing AQo and AJo in the first couple of levels. (Unless your first in from late position.)

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Would you really recommend that? Isn't it possilbe that this could be a slight -ev?

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Stop playing AQo and AJo in the first couple of levels. (Unless your first in from late position.)

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Would you really recommend that? Isn't it possilbe that this could be a slight -ev?

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I also wanted to know does this include limping in with low pocket pairs and A-x suited (when blinds are small)What should I do if I have KQ OTB or in the CO and it is folded to me?

[tewall]

I play at Party. I don't know how this would work at Stars, but here's what I've tried, and it's worked very well.

If I'm out of position with AK, I'll raise about 10xBB. I'll usually get 0 or 1 callers. The big raise will often take it down, but I'm fine with that as AK is a difficult hand to play OOP, especially if you have more than 1 caller, as you're finding out.

If I get only 1 or 2 callers, I'll fire a continuation bet of 1/2 pot. My experience has been that this will take the pot much more than 1 out of 3 times. The key is to find a pre-flop raise that's large enough to get, on the average, one caller. That should get a lot of value for your hand.

I don't play AQ or AJ from EP. From late position I would play it the same way; make a big raise, hoping to get exactly one caller, and then follow up with a cb if the flop misses and it gets checked to me.

I'll take one shot at the pot after the flop, and then I'm done if that fails.

This has worked very well for me, but the lowest blinds at Party are 10/15, so a raise of 150 is a significant portion of the 800 you get. Another thing the large raise does, BTW, is price people off of drawing to get sets.

At any rate, my experience has been that you can get people to fold to the continuation bet, with the larger pre-flop raise.

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1. When the blinds are low and I miss the flop with 2 big overs, after I made preflop raise, should I just check /fold?

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This depends on how many players are in the hand and your position. I generally don't c-bet w/more than two opponents in the hand. Remember, the more people in the hand, the more likely someone caught a piece of the flop. Low level players will play a lot of junk and call c-bets if they catch any part of the flop.

So, in late position with two or fewer opponents, I c-bet most of the time if it's checked to me. In early position w/two or fewer opponents, I c-bet about 1/2 the the time depending on the texture of the flop.

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2. It seems like these guys call my bets on the flop no matter what! Should I stop my continuation betting?

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No, see above. You should, however, make note of the players who simply won't lay down a hand. Make a note to avoid bluffing them and value bet the hell out of the flops that you do hit.

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3. Is it always ill advised to try and muscle out pots, when the blinds are low?

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You should do very little if any bluffing in the first few levels. A semi-bluff here and there is ok, but bluffing at the pot with no outs is unwise. Pick your spots very carefully and don't get pot committed unless you want all the chips in the middle.

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5. I have discovered and now assume(at least so far) that coming over the top is not effective against these players at all. Every time I come over the top they make me fend for my whole stack, have you guys found similar patterns and are these assumptions correct?

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A lot of low-level players have looser calling requirements than they do raising requirements. Bizarre? Yes. I think it mostly stems from all the big moves they see on TV which convinces them that your over-the-top raise must be a bluff.

Don't be in the habit of trying to muscle pots with over-the-top-bets. It simply doesn't work at this level. Forget about trying to put fancy moves on your opponents. They don't know enough to read much into your betting patterns and the texture of the board.

So, what do you do? Well, the nice thing is that your decision making process is largely simplified. In the early stages simply play supertight ABC poker and bet your big hands into the doofuses at the table who will call you with marginal holdings.

I do not think that all of the advice you are getting is sound. I started at the $5-6 SnG's and have worked up to $15 and $20.

Lower Levels

Open the betting with A-J+ from any position. If someone opens before you use your head. Don't call all-ins unless you smell desparation. Call reasonable bets that don't give you a bad feeling, you'll be surprised how often you playing K-10+, Q-10+, and even J-10+. Also, at the $5's, 22-77 are raising hands so your going to get a lot more coin-flips even at the early levels. (Not calling reasonable bets with your opponents' range in the $5's is bad poker, IMHO.) How do you know, well observation, patience and learning. You'll get there, I did. (or at least I am getting better at it.) If you have A-J, and are called by three people with worse cards that's not the end of the world, and that's where you stand to make some money.

Flop - at this level, conservative play is better. Opponents aren't observant enough for tricky play to work.

A) Flop hits you with TP or better.

EP - if there are draws on the board, bet the pot, be prepared to call an all-in. Keep your head though, not every $5'er plays bad.

LP - same, if someone bets ahead, it most likely is TPNK or MP very often. They also bet draws a lot, so make sure raise removes their odds. Also, you will see a lot more trips b/c they don't understand you need a lot of limpers for these hands.

If there are no draws, bet less b/c you want some callers, but you have to protect hand!!!

B) Flop misses you - EP it's best to be conservative. LP - why not bet, especially on a ragged board if there are not a lot of callers. Just be careful is all.

At $5, you just have to be used to bad beats, and you have to be very used to the fact that the best cards pre-flop aren't the best after a lot more often. By the way, it's like at the $10, $15, and even $20 a lot too. Confidence in your game and the long-run is all you need.

I'll write more about the higher blind levels later...

[valenzuela]

you are defenetly way too loose early on, ure not really suggesting playing KTo early on, right? You are basically hoping that the guys has 22...yikes!. If thats not what u meant I apologize.

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you are defenetly way too loose early on, ure not really suggesting playing KTo early on, right? You are basically hoping that the guys has 22...yikes!. If thats not what u meant I apologize.

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Is this to me? look like it. I'm not saying open with K-10+ in EP if that's what your asking.

[tigerite]

You shouldn't open K-10 in any position at level 1.

Just play AA-QQ and open shove AK early levels and youll be fine.

[handsome]

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open shove AK early levels and youll be fine.

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Not really...

1) As has been said, AJ and AQ aren't great EP raising hands early in an SNG, as most flops will miss you you'll be out of position. This is especially true of the tiny starting stacks on Party.

2) I, for one, always fire a half pot continuation bet. Always. I feel this makes it impossible to read if the flop hit me or if I have a pocket pair already. I'm going to take the pot down better than 1/3 the time, so the bet turns a profit, plus the times I C-bet a missed flop get me more action for the times I don't miss.

Seriously? Not even if it folds to you in CO?

[tigerite]

Seriously.

Wow! You definitely play these tighter than me...all good though.

It's come to attention I wrote this post badly and it appears I am recommending playing some weak cards in the early levels. For example...

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Call reasonable bets that don't give you a bad feeling, you'll be surprised how often you playing K-10+, Q-10+, and even J-10+.

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There is a type. "you" should have been " you're ". I did not mean to write that you should play (or call) with these cards in early levels. I hoped to convey that when you have A-J+, you will be facing cards like K-10+, Q-10+, and even J-10+ often enough that getting in with your AJ+ hands is profitable.

Also, when I said this...

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Also, at the $5's, 22-77 are raising hands so your going to get a lot more coin-flips even at the early levels.

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I meant to convey that people call big bets with these early, so even when you get yourself into trouble, you're going to find yourself with coin flips way more often, which helps your long-run performance.

Moving past that, I personally am not afraid to play K-10 in LP when the table seems weak coming to me. I am confident enough in my post-flop play (at least at the $5 through $20 levels) that I will take a stab at it and I have position. I think I am making chips in the long run on this, so that's just my personal philosophy.