first hour of a tourney -- how many hands

How many hands you play first hour of a tourney, you play a lot and see a lot of flops or a few.... here are results from the first hour of a tourney on bodog... thoughts?

Level 1 5/10 1 played
Folded 66 and 99 to raises in late position
Played 99 from SB when i got to limp... bet flop of unders and took down small pot

Level 2 10/20 0 played

Level 3 15/30 2 played
Reraised with AA and took it down
re raised with AK and took it down on flop bet

Level 4 20/40 1 played 1 nice lay down
99 in BB call mini raise
Bet the flop all unders and take it down
AQ in BB raise from middle of 4.5xbb i say folding AQ, he shows AK

Level 5 0

So total played first hour is only 4, but i won all 4.


Thoughts?

[nath]

I'd say that's pretty tight. Tighter than I play for sure.
I call the 66 and 99, but I always play for sets when it's cheap, and more so if I think opponent is predictable (which you don't really know at the beginning, true, but still).
Folding the 99 is DEFINITELY too tight.
The AQ is debatable. Depends what you think about opponent.
Four hands in an hour seems like it's really tight but pokertracker tells me I'm pretty loose so you may not want to listen to me.

[Sam T.]

This is rather broad, but I'll give it a shot. (How many hands per level?)

Remember that the hands you play are (duh) dependant on the cards you get, and your position when you get them. In the first hour of a typical tournamet I usually see about 17% of flops (exclusive of freebies in the BB).

"Folded 66 and 99 to raises in late position"
Depending on size of the raise, these are probably worth a call because the implied odds are huge. Hit your set of sixes, and you can stack AA, AK and many other pre-flop monsters.

"Played 99 from SB when i got to limp... bet flop of unders and took down small pot"

Sure.

"AQ in BB raise from middle of 4.5xbb i say folding AQ, he shows AK"

Yeah, folding is probably a good idea, but don't tell the villains your cards. That's information they don't need.

Rather than worrying about a single tournament, play more and see where you stand. If you are just starting out, it is probably better to play tight early until you get more used to post-flop play.

And here is the problem i face to continue....
Next hour 50/100
UTG AK raise 3xbb and take blinds

Middle position JJ, fold to an all in of 1200, i have about 2200.. he shows 99 grrr

now at 100/200 and i a blinded down to 1540
I get QJ on the button push, called by SB with A4, AQ flop gg me.

this is my story every tourney it seems

[Matador225]

Without a very specific read I am always getting my chips in the middle w/ JJ in your situation.

I play more hands in the first hour of a tourney than later on. I do that for a couple of reasons:

1-Blind are cheaper so youhave much better implied odds, so I limp or call small raises with drawing hands suited connectors and small pocket pairs.
2-I don't mind to look a little loose because this table will break and I won't play with many of these players later. So I will be able to buil;d a good and respected table image on the following hours.
3-There's more bad players in the first hour than later on, so I wan't their chips.
4-If I get lucky and get a big stack (4 times the initial buy-in so 6000 on PS), I can play a much better game when the blinds.

However, if I get no cards, I won't see many flops and if I get shortstacked, I won't see any flop unless I am all-in.

First hour, I may be between 20-30% but later I am under 20%. So in the first hour (at around 1 hand / minute) I will see around 15 flops.

Why call with PP, you will hit a set on the flop 1 / 7.5. So if you call a raise with 33 and you and your opponent have more than 7.5 time his raise and you think you will be able to go all-in if you hit, you should call (of course don't do it if it is exaclty 7.5) but if he raise to 80 with the blinds at 10-20, it is not a bad call. I will risk 20% of my stack doing these kind of call, so if I don't hit, I will stop calling raises with drawing hands. It is harder to play suited connecteors because sometimes you hit but not very hard and you may be the best but you will face a continuation bet, so I suggests to start with PP and when you feel confident, do it with suited connectors or 1 gapers.

About your specific hands :

66 and 99 it depends of the raise.
AA how much did you re-raised (and how much was the raise?) try to build a nice pot with it, but don't slow play, raise to get a call.

AK, did you hit on the flop or only a CB?

99 again, fine.

AQ, I think I would have called, but it is debatable because you are out-of-position, if you would play after him, you should call. Unless you have a read that he is playing as tight as you and would only do that with JJ+ and AK.

You can't let yourself be blinded out like this, play more hands.

Also, you should state the buy-in and the effective stacks when you ask for answers.

[KneeCo]

Hard to say without stack sizes and such, but I would guess based on this limited info that you are a little too tight.

Notice how you didn't play any hands for a level and then couldn't get any action with the nuts (not necessarily a causal relationship there, often your image doesn't matter online, especially early on, but it's something to consider).

99 is not a hand I'd be quick to muck in level 1. Also later on, when you called with it from the BB, I would probably CR a flop of unders (again, subject to reads and stack sizes).

In the first hour I play a TAG game. Tight-aggressive doesn't mean that you are folding everything. You definitely need to play a few more hands than you currently are during the first hour in an attempt to build a little bit of a stack to carry you through the rest of the tournament.

I vary my play based on the table I'm seated at. It's important to be able to gauge if the players you are seated with are tight or loose, passive or aggressive. Based on this information I'll mix up my play accordingly. As an example, I normally wouldn't limp small-medium pairs up front or in early middle position, however if the table is extremely loose and passive with a lot of players limping and seeing lots of flops I'll limp this hand, even in an "earlier" position, hoping that the passive nature of the table will hold true. If it's raised behind me and there aren't any callers going to the flop I'll abandon my whopping single BB and move on to the next hand. If there are a few callers heading to the flop, it's relatively cheap for me to call and I stand a chance to take down a huge pot by spiking a set I'll stick around. There are a lot of hands that can be played in this same manner; however going beyond this you also need to be able to judge when to keep playing postflop and when to fold. Try to play hands appropriate for the position you are playing out of and the table you are seated at.

Another thing to consider when playing as tight as you are is that observant opponents will see that you are hardly playing any hands. You need to give action to get it. If you aren't mixing it up at all you are not very likely to get paid off when you finally do get that monster. Smart players will know that your preflop raise means you have a hand and they will get out of the way just as they did when you picked up wired pairs and everyone folded to your raises. I also think that showing these two hands was a mistake. Players should already suspect that you are playing tight because you haven't mixed it up very much. Don't show them that they are right - let them keep guessing as to what hands you are raising with. By showing them that your preflop raise is a monster they are less likely to get involved in some pots with you and you won't have the opportunity to win their chips. You would be better off raising with trash on the button to steal the blinds and showing THAT hand so that your next raise gets someone to play back at you when you're holding a monster. I'm not advocating this move, but I think it would get you more action than showing the two wired pairs that you did. All that did was validate the other player's thoughts about you and let them know your preflop raise means something and they shouldn't play with you without a premium hand.

Basically you need to experiment with these concepts a bit. Figure out which starting hands you want to see a flop with against a lot of opponents and which you want to limit your opposition with. You definitely need to mix it up and get involved in a few more pots than you currently are. This appears to be what's preventing you from building a stack early which will help you to make it through the middle stages of the tournament.

Just don't take this too far and get involved in every pot. There's a good middle ground here for you to find.

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Thoughts?

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I agree with several of the other posters that this is probably a bit tight. Your implied odds can be really big on early calls, 10-1, 15-1 or more, so it pays to see some flops. That's the easy part. The hard part is knowing when the flop only hits you partially and your hand is second best and you have to get away from it.

One thing I do is keep an eye on the player statistics, which tells me how many hands I'm playing. Obviously we all go pretty card dead from time to time and this percentage can get down pretty low, like 5% or less.

I know I'm looking for this in other players, and I have to assume they're watching it with me as well.

If this happens and I'm not showing any action, then I'm really worried about not getting paid if I catch a nice hand like Aces or Kings or a flopped set. In these situations, which are not infrequent, I will splash around a bit, maybe raising with JTs UTG or something like that.

This is a kind of "safe" hand that plays ok multiway if I get lots of callers but no reraises. It is also easy to get away from if someone comes way over the top, or if the flop completely misses me. But by getting in a raise with a hand that would usually be folded, you are sending out a beacon to the rest of the table ... like hey, I'm here, I'm not just waiting for the nuts.

[illegit]

DodgerPA = RockyMcRock

I might be wrong but I think it's impossible to win tournaments playing this way. At level 1 folding any small pair to a single, standard raise can't be out of anything but a pure hatred for money. If the raise is abnormally large and the implied odds aren't there, OK, but otherwise these situations are amongst the best to accumulate a lot of chips.