my early tightening lessons continue

[nicholswfu]

Needless to say its not that simple. I may call you and I may not. By that point I have enough of your chips that even if I call the all in I still have a good stack(and you went all in with rags). Even if you win, unless you radically alter your play, we will just repeat the sequence until you are out. Obviously, its very player specific. In addition, I play this way sometimes and othertimes not depending on the table. If I see someone much more aggressive than me I will often sit back and let them indimidate and knock people out and I move closer to the money by playing tight. When I finally start playing aggressively - i.e. I am close to the money and have picked up wins on the hands I played, I often get folds due to my image as a tight player(including hands like A,Q to my A,J)

[morgan180]

[ QUOTE ]
And once I figure them out in that regard I am going to raise with a wide range of hands

So I lose 30 chips, then I lose 50 chips, then I lose 100 chips, then I reraise you all in with rags, you fold and I pick up 600 chips.

Lori

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly - I fold because 90% of all of my results come with the blinds at 100 and up - and there is no need to piss away my stack in level one when even if I double up on this hand I'm not even close to guaranteed being in the money.

[nicholswfu]

You will often be folding strong hands to weaker ones - waiting on a monster. When you finally call with your kings (or even aces), you do not neccessarily win. As another point, in the long run, over thousands of hands, you will lose because the ratio of your hands greater better than A,Q in this identical situation is sure to be lower the hands A,Q equivalent or lower that were raised. thus your argument may hold true for 1 game where you finally reraise me and I fold and you get your money back - fine. But its exceedingly unlikely to work that way in the long run. Let me point out that I am also not talking about making frequent big raises on garbage.

In addition, I will raise my aces, kings etc. in a similar fashion if that is the rhythm of that game. I will not raise my aces in a way that reveals them, especially if I have been raising a variety of hands to a sufficient level. When you finally do call, sometimes you will win, other times you will call to see aces, but often you will be folding to weaker or equivalent hands. It goes back to my original point- if you fold A,Q to a medium raise you are just a tighter player than those who play it. I still argue that the pot odds are extremely important in the decision making but of course taken in context with your read on the players.

But I might add that this was a reasonable raise and not one that made you all in.

Let me stress that I am talking about low-level games - $5 or $10 SNG. People will raise those with K,8o or even worse sometimes. Its a real mix of good players and horrible players.

[nicholswfu]

After reading the original post again and thinking about our discussion - I still would call that. I wouldn't reraise it unless i knew more about the players. I just could not fold under these circumstances.
Cheers.

[ddubois]

[ QUOTE ]
Axx flop is not as good as a Qxx flop

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a pretty common misconception that Ed Miller was kind enough to debunk for me a few months back.

Loose raiser:

Board: Ac
Hand 1: 61.0964 % [ 00.52 00.09 ] { AQo }
Hand 2: 38.9036 % [ 00.30 00.09 ] { AA-JJ, AKs-AJs, KQs, AKo-AQo }
Board: Qc
Hand 1: 58.8282 % [ 00.51 00.08 ] { AQo }
Hand 2: 41.1718 % [ 00.33 00.08 ] { AA-JJ, AKs-AJs, KQs, AKo-AQo }

Tight raiser:

Board: Ac
Hand 1: 51.8857 % [ 00.48 00.04 ] { AQo }
Hand 2: 48.1143 % [ 00.44 00.04 ] { AA-QQ, AKs-AQs, AKo }
Board: Qc
Hand 1: 50.3022 % [ 00.47 00.03 ] { AQo }
Hand 2: 49.6978 % [ 00.47 00.03 ] { AA-QQ, AKs-AQs, AKo }

[eagle]

There seems to be four conclusions that can be drawn from this thread.

1) If your playing AQ because you think it's a good hand and that "you have enough post flop skill to use the hand effectively against multiple unknown and unpredictable opponents" than play.

2) If your playing it to primarily hit QQx, AAx or a straight than the fact that it's AQ is irrelevant because you could probably play 30 - 40 % of the hands that way.

3) If your folding because you believe that letting five morons knock each other out while you wait for a better opportunity is lower variance that's okay.

4) If your folding because you do not have skill mentioned in 1) above that's okay.

So I applied this criteria to myself and came to this conclusion.

1) I'm sure right now that I do not possess the skill necessary to do this. Theoretically, I do not know if it is really possible at the low levels where you never have solid reads on the opponents.
2) I do not want to be bleeding chips like this early.
3) I accept variance for what it is and don't worry about it.
4) This is what I would do and why.

So of the four, the only one that I find flawed is number two. The other three are player dependent.


I think threads like this really help new players like myself see the concepts in relation to the mechanics which most of the time is not clear.

[SuitedSixes]

Nicely put.

[Jason Strasser]

Men are from mars, women are from venus, and some people on this forum are misapplying concepts to the nth degree. Here are some responses to some random posts.

[ QUOTE ]
My thinking was that AQo doesn't play well 5-handed out of position after the flop in the first level of a SNG.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are not confident in your post flop ability if you make this type of fold. That is really the bottom line. It's silly when posters say "flop is AXX you must be ready to check fold" or "you can only play QQx flops or AQx". Listen, you call preflop because you have a strong hand that is likely stronger than all the other hands with an ace or a queen in them (domination). Sure, I guess you may be up against AK or some moron slowplaying a bigger hand, but lets get real, if you know what you are doing you can make this preflop call profitable postflop, especially against clowns that are still around early in a sng.

[ QUOTE ]
Good fold. There will be plenty of better spots to get your money in.

[/ QUOTE ]

We all know the fish who has AJ, AT, Ax and flops top pair and cant get away from it. The chance to get in the pot with a dominating hand early getting a billion to one on your preflop call is just about as good as you are going to get.

[ QUOTE ]
Be inclined to check/fold non ideal flops - e.g. Axx, Qxx. You are playing here largely for the potential of a flop like AQx or QQx. Sometimes you will be able to contest the pot on an Axx or Qxx flop, but if you have a bad feeling about it, don't be afraid to fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a forumla that I guess is a guideline for postflop? Well, I think there are way too many variables to say something like this because I sure as heck know that at this level there will be a flop like Qxx where you should be getting all your money in instantly. It obviously depends on a lot of things, thats why you play poker.

[ QUOTE ]
With AQo you are going to:
Flop 4 aces or 4 queens .01% of the time
Flop a full house .09% of the time
Flop three to the flush 4.38% of the time
Flop a straight of KJT .32% of the time
Flop a three of a kind 1.35% of the time
Flop two pair 2.02% of the time.

But flop the non-ideal Axx or Qxx 32.43% of the time.

Muck it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seriously? How often do AA KK and QQ get played like this anyway?

[ QUOTE ]
Pushing small edges is great if you want a 20% ROI.

Whether you want a 20% ROI is dependent on whether your ROI is currently 10% or 30%.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think its safe to argue this edge is not small, and pushing it is not the difference between a 20% and 30% ROI. We are talking about 20 chips here right?

-Jason

[morgan180]

[ QUOTE ]
You are not confident in your post flop ability if you make this type of fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are right, I am not confident playing this five handed from first position, which is why I chose to fold.

I feel that as a new player (I've only been playing regularly for 6 months and probably have a combined total of 300 SNGs under my belt) I would more often than not bleed chips on this if I did not hit my QXX flop.

That is definitely a short coming on my end so I choose not to play to my weakness, which I think everyone is fine with.

And I agree with your point about "is AA,QQ,KK really played that way?" Well, I have seen it often enough, but I agree, my fear was not that someone min-raised with a monster. The fear was how do I proceed against four players playing this hand from the bb in the first level of the wild west of SNGs (10+1).

I do disagree that its "only 20 chips" because it really isn't. I think a player like me that is still learning is looking more at 60-80 chips because of the uncertainty on how to handle the post-flop action, which starts to become significant, IMHO.

Thanks to all the powerhouses chiming in here, this has been a really educational thread.

I will see if I can dig up the rest of the hand, I'd be interested to see how everyone would play the rest of the streets with this hand.

[pooh74]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Axx flop is not as good as a Qxx flop

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a pretty common misconception that Ed Miller was kind enough to debunk for me a few months back.

Loose raiser:

Board: Ac
Hand 1: 61.0964 % [ 00.52 00.09 ] { AQo }
Hand 2: 38.9036 % [ 00.30 00.09 ] { AA-JJ, AKs-AJs, KQs, AKo-AQo }
Board: Qc
Hand 1: 58.8282 % [ 00.51 00.08 ] { AQo }
Hand 2: 41.1718 % [ 00.33 00.08 ] { AA-JJ, AKs-AJs, KQs, AKo-AQo }

Tight raiser:

Board: Ac
Hand 1: 51.8857 % [ 00.48 00.04 ] { AQo }
Hand 2: 48.1143 % [ 00.44 00.04 ] { AA-QQ, AKs-AQs, AKo }
Board: Qc
Hand 1: 50.3022 % [ 00.47 00.03 ] { AQo }
Hand 2: 49.6978 % [ 00.47 00.03 ] { AA-QQ, AKs-AQs, AKo }

[/ QUOTE ]

nice post...but i still would disagree given the hand in this particular thread. I dont think with that many limpers and this level buy-in and BB level that that range of hands is relevant here. Your hand range for opponent is not indicative of the scenario here...however, your point is made, but again it is a narrow one...basically "AQ likes to see an A more so against a monster pocket than it like to see a Q". But your range is too narrow IMO. I think with many limpers Id feel more comfortable with a Q high flop here. Of course what makes me comfortable (cigarettes, crack, heroin [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img])is not always best for me so I could be wrong.

pooh