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.

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ 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 ]

I would fold here, but it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

I certainly wouldn't say that raising is wrong. I'm sure many good players would raise here. That's just not my style.

The disturbing thing is that you reference my lvl4 post to advocate folding, but then talk about "waiting 'til the bubble' and 'If i had 800 chips i MIGHT push w/ AJo'. This is clearly the opposite of what I was saying.

Don't use my post as an excuse for weak play. If you want to follow my advice, you shouldn't just follow 50% of it. If I had 800 chips, I would never fold AJ here, and I would push hand much worse than AJ.

When I said that the transition from lvl4 to lvl5 was the most important event in a SnG for me, I meant it. I don't like to wait until the bubble. I have no idea when the bubble or ITM will occur, so there's no way for me to plan. I just manage my stack and try to build it faster than the blinds are going up. This my plan with 6 players left or 4 players left.

Clearly, you need to adjust for the # of players, but that's not my main focus.

Here is my finish breakdown for April:
1st: 20
2nd: 7
3rd: 14
4th: 7
5th: 9
6th: 19
7th: 12
8th: 7
9th: 2
10th: 3

Good month. Small sample...not the point.

Looking back, I had one stretch of 54 games with only 1 4th place finish. I don't like to wait until the bubble.