$20 rebuy on Stars, about 80 left with 45 payouts. No particular read on villain, table is very aggressive, including Apestyles and lilholdem954 both with big stacks (neither of them is villain here). My thinking is that I'm not really able to play small ball at this table, and don't want to get blinded down to an unreasonable amount. Is this just an easy fold? Is a resteal here crazy because of the possibility that we're dominated (in other words, I'd rather have T9s for this play than AJ?).

Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t800/t1600
(Ante: t75)
8 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: t43106
UTG+1: t68434
MP1: t26313
MP2: t64419
Hero: t24142
Button: t84303
SB: t50844
BB: t137480

Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is CO with A J
2 folds, MP1 raises to t3900, MP2 folds, Hero

you can really argue all three plays here i think...i would be willing to just call this here because you still have enough chips in my opinion, as does your opponent, and you will have position on the hand

if you aren't comfortable calling, then it's raise or fold obv...basically you just have to decide if you have the best hand enough of the time to make a shove profitable

What do we think villain's calling range is here? Are we getting him to folding out middle pairs, AQ, etc?

I think that you really need a good read in order to do anything than fold, which is where I am leaning. Main things to think about are 1. has he done this before? (what is his aggro level) 2. How tight is his calling range (QQ+, AK most likely)?

What does this 3900 bet mean? he didnt want to click twice on the bar to make it 3x, which means that he wants a call (IMO) unless this is his standard raise. I make these goofy raises most often with a good hand. The opposite thinking would be that he can fold for less in there preflop if he gets popped. So, this is just as read dependent.

so if he folds, you are at 30k (19 big blinds), if he calls you have 3 outs, unless he is calling with 1010 or less pp, which is unlikely.

All things considered, and still with 15 Big blinds I think this is a fold, unless he has shown a tendency to raise, fold.

Also, he is MP1, not a stealing spot indicating a decent holding, and a fold for you. Did I tell you about the time I went quail hunting with Tim Wakefield?

Meh, calling here is bad imo. Prices in the blinds.

I'm pretty confident we are behind his range since he is raising from a fairly early position with the big stack already invested in the hand. Unless the BB was a nit, the shorties will generally stay away from that situation. So, we need him to fold to our push to make this the right play. With your read on the table being very agressive, I'm gonna have to say fold and wait for a better spot. I think you get called more often than not here and best case you are racing against an under PP.

Fold>Push>Call

2.5xBB is pretty standard at this level.

Agreed, standard raise here was 4200ish. At these blinds at this table it was actually fairly rare to see an exactly 3x open raise.




That's pretty awesome, I'm not sure if you told me before. I hear a fair amount of stories about TW (it's also my handle on stars) .

the big problem here is that an all-in move lays him about a 3-to-2 price, which means he is calling with A-Q probably, and also with medium pairs...that's another reason why i think a call or fold is preferable to an all-in

on the flip side, however, we might get a call from A-10 or possibly even K-Q, hoping for a race...but that's extremely rare unless against a loose player

Given the fact that he is raising from MP1, I think a shove is -EV here.

His range has to be tight, and if you shove, you're getting yourself into a never ahead / way behind situation.

No need to get frisky yet, although you are at a tough table, you have some time. Also, if the table is aggressive as you say, you'll have a much better situation to get your money in.