$25k guar tourney, very early. blinds still at 10/20 everyone started with 2000. one player has a little over 4000 but everyone else is still in the 2500-1500 range. I have like 1950

Hero is dealt As Ts UTG

Hero folds?

blinds structure is 15 min and blinds move slow early on. Is this fold ok considering I like to play tihgt early in tourneys. or is this just weak?

UTG I fold it in these circumstances. UTG I'm only raising with AA - 10's, AK suited or unsuited, and AQ suited. Fold everything else.

it's not too tight; it's standard

I agree, fold is standard. If youve seen enough to of the table to think you can limp with it and not get raised, its not a terrible play, looking to flop the flush or flush draw its not horrible, but if the table is at all aggressive preflop, just get out of the way.

Deeper stacks limping or even min-raising is okay if you think the table is paying attention and it may have some deception value for a later big hand.

wow, all those folds at level 1 with A,10s.. as long as you're a good enough player to let go when needed, I'm limping here.

I'm folding to any decent raise, and i'm folding post flop on a non-perfect board

but ya, i think the fold is too tight for 10/20 level 1 with 15 min levels

I knew there was a reason why I liked Royal, other than his avatar. Yeah, I'd limp here also. And starting with 2000 chips is not bad with blinds at this stage. Lot more people tend to limp with weaker Aces, yet they play them like the nuts.

I limp.

Limp > Raise >>>>>>>>>> Fold.

I like this answer.

This is a completely stylistic play; there's no right or wrong answer. I like to see a lot of flops early, so I'd limp here, but if you don't feel comfortable with your ability to outplay people postflop, then you might want to take a tighter approach. I can't imagine folding a small pair here though, and if you fold 99 in this spot, you're ****ing cr@zy.

I like Iggy, his answers are goot.

99 is a pretty standard fold until you get to MP at a full table if you're playing a Tight-Aggressive game.

As for those advocating limping...I really dislike the limp this hand. Either raise or fold here. The chance that no one at the table will put in a raise is pretty small, and then you'll be out the initial limp or have to call more money to see the flop seeing as how usually the raise will be bigger especially if more than one person has limped. Reraises preflop are pretty rare without premium hands, so if you put in the raise yourself you give yourself a good probability of seeing the flop for 3xbb whereas if you limp you're usually going to either be out 1bb if you fold to a raise or it'll cost you 5bb or so to see the flop.

Not true,

late position players will be hesitant to make a raise vs 1 or 2 early position limpers, unless they have a premium hand.

at the $20's on Party 10 or 6 man you'll see the flop for <= 3x BB a lot limping here.

these absolute answers are just silly

I may need to take a break from posting.

Are we really helping each other?
Does it really matter what you do with ATs from EP early on?

I"m just flusterd don't mind me.

I'd actually like to know what people do when they have like AQ, AK or even like AJ and on the SB or BB. Or what about PPs 99^?
Do majority just call when people limp? Raise no matter what?

There are times I just call, this way if I hit I can usually trap someone who limped in with A-weak kicker.

u and me both

I think I fold AT here, but I think people are being too tight if they advocate folding AJ, AQ, or pairs lower than 10s here.

Online it seems to me that if you limp UTG, you can sometimes start a trend. If I limp UTG with say 88, I'm perfectly fine if 3 others limp with me. It seems that once one person limps online, it encourages other to do so as well. In live games, not so much.

You just have to be confident of a few things:
1) You can outplay people on the flop -- and a lot of times this means we'll just have to fold, but that's fine if we invested next to nothing in the pot

2) You can fold to a raise preflop. AJ, AQ, etc are not the nuts, don't play them out of position to a big raise.

3) When you flop big, be willing to get all your chips in. ie. If you flop your set, make sure you know how you're going to play it to max value. Of course, this sometimes backfires (like when my set of 9s lost to runner-runner wheel draw last night), but in the long run it sets up situations where you might be able to double your chips early. This is a good thing. It allows your to play a much more flexible tournament in the later rounds.

I understand why people adovacte folds, but to me, early tournament is a great time to make small risks for potentially huge rewards. The 20 you invest here when you have to fold isn't going to matter when you have to push your 55% edge late in the tournament because you're short, so why not?

this is what i mean.
how arbitrary.

Fold ATs but others are too tight to advocate fodling AJ.

can we ever get beyond this trivial crap.
I'm guilty too, I know.

true, everyone has a cutoff; but projecting yours on others without knowing their style is silly.

no offense.

Why AT and not AJ? Both can work together to make straights. Both are folded for the same reason - to avoid domination from AK. Why draw the line there?

I don't mind limping here. I just think it's 'standard' to fold unless I'm playing against my family who are the worst players ever. I agree with Actuary's implication that it's too much hair-pulling for too marginal of a situation. In the end does it really matter if you spend $20 of $2000 on ATs? Only if you're bad enough to think a pair of aces = teh nutz.

The main difference is that AJ is only dominated by AA, KK, QQ, AK and AQ, 34 hands, while AT is dominated by AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, AQ and AJ, 56 hands...a pretty significant increase.

Also when you do hit TPTK, AT is facing 9 outs against K,Q,Js, while AJ is only facing 6 outs, so a scare card on the turn is (more than 33%) less frequent.

I think it was Cloutiers (maybe DB) starting hand analysis where he said AK is solid, AQ is very good, AJ takes a big drop and "AT is falling off the cliff".

What copernicus said. Using your logic we should be as willing to play AQ utg as we are A3 - they're both dominated by AK and they both work together to make straights. No difference!

I have no problem folding A10 and AJ UTG because I recognize that I'm still developing my post-flop skills (And that is a lot of developing). If I'm holding A10 UTG and raise (which I will do at a shorthanded table, or if it's a weak/tight table) and the flop brings me TPTK, I get WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too excited. I used to put far more chips in the middle than I should've with a hand like TPTK.

Im always a more profitable player when I tighten up my pre-flop hands. It makes my post-flop decisions much easier.

AJ has 12 combos, not 16, when we hold AT
Edit: in fact isn't it 39 and 57 ?

However I like the explanation
I'm not sure why it's drawn at AT though.
You could do similar for AQ vs AJ.

I'll fold ATo utg and limp A8s from UTG in 1st level

wanna fight about it?


*****************

theriin,

we're not debating the fact everyone has a comfort/cutoff.
It's just the emphaticness that's offputting.
I think it's more gradual and dependent that just AJ yes, AT no.



****************

how does KK dominate AJ if JJ doesn't ?

Now I get 42 and 60

AA-JJ dominate both

Add AJ and TT to the AT side and 3 more JJ's

I should have said dominating hands, not just AK. AJ is obviously dominated by fewer hands than AT, yes, but it's still dominated by several. At what point is it 'ok' to call from EP...when dominated by fewer than 45 hands, 40 hands...35? I just don't see why it's an easy call for AJ and not for AT.

IMO both are garbage from EP when offsuit.

whatever you say...my brain was (and still is) hurting, trying to wrap it around 9 place conditional probabilities.

and what i agree with most is that there is no brightline, it depends on a lot of factors. Domination to me means 70:30 or greater, so certainly AJ is dominated by JJ, AT by JJ and TT.

I'm not a fan of your earlier logic about the various combinations of hands to dominate in favour of folding AT,

You still only make 3 others hands at A or better, regardless of combinations.
we have to assume we're using our skills here and would be able to fold if we think we're beat.

Anyone saying fold ATs in level 1 for @ a cost of 1% of our stack because we could be dominated, or face the possibility of losing that 1% to a raise should not be playing poker in the 1st place.

Thats a pretty strong statement, given that I dont think you can find a single pro who would recommend limping with AT unless its suited (there may be some confusion early on in the thread about whether the issue is AT or AT suited.

The point isnt only how it is fairly easy to be dominated, but also how difficult it is to play most flops out of position. Its a hand you can lose a lot with but arent likely to win a lot with.

without at least Ace Up, I'm not sure a decent player would lose a lot.

AT off, I do fold.
ATs I'm in, unless crazy aggressive table

i think it's important to see as many flops as possible in the first few rounds of an MTT just because when the blinds start rising you don't want to run out of hands. So to maximize my chip count at early part of tourney i try to limp with as many decent hands as possible. i also try not to raise alot early in tourney, unless i pick up an absolute monster or i have an optimal position to steal.
With that said, i have to agree with Royal there is nothing wrong with trying to limp in here. You just have to learn to exercise control when playing it postflop. And if a raise does come, don't be afraid to lay it down for the initial 1% of your stack.

FWIW I fold ATs there. I also fold AJos, and probably limp AJs. For whatever arbitrary reason, that's my cutoff. If I'm in a crappy mood I fold AJs and AQos as well.

well thats the whole point, It is suited. I'm not playing A.10 there to make TP,
I'm lookin to hit that monster, or possibly take a small pot with TPTK uncontested.

On another note,

I've noticed ever since i started playing Tournaments regularily that i become a bit more loose early on.
I used to be a really TAG tourney player, and had decent results, but i've since switched my style a bit and realised i can pick up a lot more scared money early and not be in a panic by the time 1st break comes.

Its not as extreme as Zimmer, who says he busts early or goes deep, but its a nice medium of a similar idea, and that in combination with a solid understanding of HOH2 really helped improve my MTT results.

OK...youre statement isnt quite as extreme. ATs is probably in the playing range in EP of about 25% of the deepstack tourney recommendations Ive seen.

I supposed I shouldn't have said I fold AT and play AJ here because that created way more heartburn than it should have. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fine to play AT if you want to for 1% of your stack so long as your postflop play is good. What I was getting at was I don't see how people can fold decent or semi-decent hands UTG for a limp. It seems silly to save 1% when the reward can be huge.

If we put AT/AJ aside, what pocket pairs are you guys throwing away here? Honestly, to me, I'm not ditching a single one if I can get in on level 1 for a limp. If I limp 44, see a flop of A K 7 it's obviously going in the muck to a bet, but if I see a flop of A K 4, I'm going to get paid huge. To me, that's worth the 1%.

I dont think many would fold any pocket pair in EP if there is a reasonable chance that it will only cost 1%. The starting hand recommendations of the pros assume a solid game where almost no pot goes unraised preflop, and the 1% is almost always wasted without seeing a card for the effort.

I forget whether it was this or another recent thread that noted that limping is contagious in soft online games, and I agree with that. If thats the profile of your table you have huge implied odds from a pocket pair and folding would be terrible.

Ya, there is a huge difference in tables in online games.

Its very easy for players to bust and reload into another tourney 5 seconds later. which is why you could get a very agressive player at your table.

after a rotation or two, we should have enough info to know if a limp will be raised or not.