What to do with AJ here?

[Scuba Chuck]

I would normally play the AJ hand (hand 2 below), but after the first I always wonder. Any thoughts?

#Game No : 2015258366
***** Hand History for Game 2015258366 *****
NL Hold'em $30 Buy-in + $3 Entry Fee Trny:12009699 Level:4 Blinds(50/100) - Saturday, May 07, 22:16:54 EDT 2005
Table Table 12181 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 2: R_Dobes ( $1445 )
Seat 3: thebigbear23 ( $695 )
Seat 4: babemagnet96 ( $1030 )
Seat 6: Toolio ( $1610 )
Seat 7: cricka30 ( $1735 )
Seat 8: Scuba ( $760 )
Seat 10: muhiggins ( $725 )
Trny:12009699 Level:4
Blinds(50/100)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Scuba [ Ts 5c ]
>You have options at Table 12716 Table!.
>You have options at Table 12185 Table!.
cricka30 folds.
Scuba is all-In [760]
muhiggins is all-In [725]
R_Dobes folds.
thebigbear23 folds.
babemagnet96 folds.
Toolio folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5s, Td, 4d ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Kc ]
** Dealing River ** [ As ]
>You have options at Table 12185 Table!.
>You have options at Table 12182 Table!.
Scuba shows [ Ts, 5c ] two pairs, tens and fives.
muhiggins shows [ 8h, 8d ] a pair of eights.
Scuba wins 35 chips from side pot #1 with two pairs, tens and fives.
Scuba wins 1600 chips from the main pot with two pairs, tens and fives.
muhiggins finished in seventh place.
>You have options at Table 12716 Table!.
muhiggins has left the table.
Game #2015262288 starts.

#Game No : 2015262288
***** Hand History for Game 2015262288 *****
NL Hold'em $30 Buy-in + $3 Entry Fee Trny:12009699 Level:4 Blinds(50/100) - Saturday, May 07, 22:17:41 EDT 2005
Table Table 12181 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: R_Dobes ( $1445 )
Seat 3: thebigbear23 ( $695 )
Seat 4: babemagnet96 ( $980 )
Seat 6: Toolio ( $1510 )
Seat 7: cricka30 ( $1735 )
Seat 8: Scuba ( $1635 )
Trny:12009699 Level:4
Blinds(50/100)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Scuba [ Jh As ]
Scuba folds.
R_Dobes folds.
thebigbear23 folds.
babemagnet96 raises [300].
Toolio folds.
>You have options at Table 12716 Table!.
cricka30 folds.
babemagnet96 does not show cards.
babemagnet96 wins 450 chips
Game #2015264683 starts.

[curtains]

I would tend to play it but I don't think folding is terrible by any means.

[Voltron87]

I would play the first and not the second.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
I would play the first and not the second.


[/ QUOTE ]

Lol, I normally wouldn't push the first, but I know BB is VERY tight.

[Al P]

If you had that card guesser program you'd know what action cards are coming and it would make this decision a lot easier.

[Seadood228]

Seems like I've been there a lot lately.

Also, this seems to happen after I've made some pushes with marginal hands and haven't recieved any action, then I actually get a decent hand and have trouble pulling the trigger.

FWIW, I'd probably play AJ. Your last steal would lead me to believe that you will get called by some dominated hands.

[J-Lo]

Whey would ANYONE play the second one. Go read PVS's post on stack sizes. He basically says at lvl 4 you are playing to get ready for the next level (lvl 5). u have 1600 chips. having 1600 or 1750 at lvl 5 is all the same. Whey risk chips w/ a marginal hand when up against 5 others?

Maybe at the higher-- $55's+ --u could think about playing this because u have more post flop play, and bubble play isn't as autopilot, but even then i'd like to fold. I am very tight w/ some chips. I like to wait 'til the bubble to start getting frisky.

Maybe that's a leak in my game? I play very very tight until i get desperate. If i had 800 chips i MIGHT push w/ AJo, but prolly lean towards fold.

[Seadood228]

actually I think your right.

seeing that it's level 4, it might not be as wise to play this OOP, especially if you don't think you can stand a reraise, which a lot of players will do with worse hands than AJ in this spot.

I overlooked that it was only level 4.

[curtains]

[ QUOTE ]
Whey would ANYONE play the second one. Go read PVS's post on stack sizes. He basically says at lvl 4 you are playing to get ready for the next level (lvl 5). u have 1600 chips. having 1600 or 1750 at lvl 5 is all the same. Whey risk chips w/ a marginal hand when up against 5 others?

Maybe at the higher-- $55's+ --u could think about playing this because u have more post flop play, and bubble play isn't as autopilot, but even then i'd like to fold. I am very tight w/ some chips. I like to wait 'til the bubble to start getting frisky.

Maybe that's a leak in my game? I play very very tight until i get desperate. If i had 800 chips i MIGHT push w/ AJo, but prolly lean towards fold.

[/ QUOTE ]


Maybe people will play the second hand because they don't take every single word that PVS said in his post literally. Having 1600 or 1750 is not the same. It is never exactly the same if you have 150 more chips. If I started every sit and go with 150 extra chips, my ROI would go up quite a lot, yet these 150 chips don't really mean anything at the 10-15 level right?. Anyway despite all this, folding is probably fine.

Also if you had 800 chips, folding AJo first to act in a 6 handed game with 50-100 blinds is very wrong.

[Blarg]

On the second hand, what I'm thinking about is Bigbear in the cut-off with 695, a hair less than 7xBB. I dunno how thight he is or when the blinds are changing, but soon that will be 3.5xBB, and then after the blinds pass, he'll have only 1.3x the BB, and he's got to steal very soon. At under 10x the BB and the best stealing position on the table, babemagnet is going to have to steal soon too.

Also, the SB and BB are both big stacks, and are probably going to see the flop if the pot's not raised, and maybe even if it is.

So to play your hand, you're not unlikely to have to play a raise from at least one of the two people who have stack sizes encouraging raises, so you have to think about whether you want to risk losing your likely ITM place by eating a raise to play your hand.

If you play it, you may well have to beat the random hands of not just the CO or BTN raiser, but a SB or BB big stack caller.

So even though you probably have the best hand, to play it, you have to ask if you want to play it for a raise, and maybe against multiple players, out of position, and compare that to your chance to make money playing from a better position stealing (or even catching some more good cards) if you wait a bit.

Part of that would depend on how passive the table is, especially the short stacks. Your position ahead of two of the short stacks and the next lowest stack bodes well for your ability to steal after your blinds pass, in three hands, though you'll have just a little bit less to do it with.

I think you'll have better opportunities later, and the $100 you invest now in limping an AJ up front would do you more good to preserve for folding equity or to pay blinds later.

I tend to do longish analyses; somebody tell me if my ideas here are full of baloney.