New to SnG play - first hand of the tourn was AKo

[rafct]

Hi, I am a new SnG player. This is a hand I had while playing a $5+0.50 game. How should I have played it? Any advice is welcome.

I am under the gun and get dealt AKo.
I raised 5x bb.
one player made a reraise, smaller than my original raise. Others folded.. afraid of being against a pair in the beginning (any pair, the play could be too loose since its the first hand of a small buy in game) I decided to just call. Flop came Q high, he made a small bet and I called.
Turn was a blank, he bet again, this time a good amount, and i folded.

Thanks !

[lastchance]

Are you in position here? What are opening stacks? How big is "small" bet?

The 5x BB raise is a bit too big for my tastes, but not good.

You need to understand why you're calling the flop. To hit your 6 outer? Could have always contuination bet a dry flop too.

[Scuba Chuck]

your fold isn't horrible. But I bet you see reraises like this with AQ+, 99+ and perhaps even weaker in a $5.50.

Anyway, it would be helpful to know the starting chipstack, and site you play.

Back to analysis. AK OOP is kind of a pain when you completely whiff the flop. It's also a difficult hand to protect early. Considering the situation, a call, fold or even reraise is probably appropriate....

Scuba

[rafct]

I think that the blinds were 10/20 and the initial stacks were 1000. I raised to 100 and it came back to me 90 to call or something. I thought about making a pot sized bet but then it would represent a very big part of my stack and then i thought if i would bet maybe it should be all in... but I preferred to check/fold. called his flop bet because it was very small compared to the pot size, like 70 or something.

[skipperbob]

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I think that the blinds were

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Say a little prayer of Thanksgiving, to whatever pagan God you pray to, that it is the "New Citanul" [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[Lori]

None of this play is dismal, so you're thinking sensibly.

Preflop, you really don't need to raise that much at the $5 level. You'll get them to call or fold just the same with a raise to 60 or 70 and you want to get the maximum use out of your stack (you get three raises to 65 for the same cost as two to 100).

You were right to see the flop by the looks of things.

In SNGs it is often tempting to call for pot value. Try to think in terms of % of your stack rather than what's in the middle already (Of course, if pots get huge this comment is less relevant).
Will winning this pot with your 6 outs really help that much? Given that you're usually going to miss, do you really want to lose 70 more chips from your 750-800.

Those kind of questions are the ones pertinent to SNG play. It can be correct to lay down, even when getting correct pot odds.

It seems to me like you have a reasonable understanding of poker however, and if you keep using your brain you'll do just fine in the $5 games in the long run.

Lori