AQ in SB early on. simple hand qs.

[Da GOAT]

Ok this is my first hand ive posted on this site and there are some more to come today as I think I need to knuckle down and review my hands.

games are from $11 and lack reads coz im goin over past hands.

Simple hand below so looking for simple guidance.

In SB should I raise here OOP against $11 players who will call my raise more often than not. good chance of getting more than 1 caller as they dont like to be bullied.

I figure that with these loose callers early on that I am only building the pot OOP and C/B is no good against 2 callers either.

PokerStars Game #4441933046: Tournament #22092091, Hold'em No Limit -
Level II (15/30) - 2006/03/28 - 11:21:50 (ET)
Table '22092091 1' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: berg_999 (1160 in chips)
Seat 2: PkerPro7263 (1330 in chips)
Seat 3: CelticUabhar (1395 in chips)
Seat 4: domin333 (1210 in chips)
Seat 5: grinder55 (975 in chips)
Seat 6: soulfunker (715 in chips)
Seat 7: ru_callingme (4320 in chips)
Seat 9: Johnny Meat (2395 in chips)
CelticUabhar: posts small blind 15
domin333: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CelticUabhar [Qd Ah] in SB
grinder55: folds
soulfunker: calls 30
ru_callingme: folds
Johnny Meat: folds
berg_999: folds
PkerPro7263: calls 30
CelticUabhar: calls 15
domin333: checks


Please give reasoning to your answer. I do play very tight in the first 3 levels.

[taipan168]

I make it 120 to go with the intention of c-betting the flop if called. I play the PS $11s and I disagree that players will instantly call. Maybe at the $5s but not necessarily at the $11s. My guess is that if you did this no more than one would call.

[Da GOAT]

Yeah thats kinda what I thought of. have to say that I just dont like completing the blinds here.

Id make it a bit bigger pf say 150-180 coz of limpers and c/b into 1 limper OOP. I dont get attached to hands when I miss and meet resistance so check/fold turn on if i miss.


I do limp AJ down to A8 early on and fold the rest (A7-) in SB (first 3 lvls).

Thanks

[givememyleg]

AQo is a drawing hand this early. I limp in also. If you flop a Q, there is no reason to think you don't have the best hand and can bet out on the flop.

The only hands I raise in your position this early are AQs (maybe, sometimes still a limp), AK, JJ+. Everything else I limp.

Also, raising here isn't necessarily wrong, but if you do, and get called, you are OOP on the flop. If the flop misses you totally, you almost certainly have to C-Bet. If you do, and get called on the flop, you pretty much want to give the hand up.. unless villian is a calling station on draws or something... Now you have invested 300-400 chips into a pot that you gave up on. All of this can be avoided by limping pf and see if your hand improves on the flop.

[nogenius]

I raise to 120 also.

My reasoning is that AQo is usually the best hand in that situation.

[mr tree the tree]

I make it 120 to go with the intention of c-betting the flop if called. I play the PS $11s and I disagree that players will instantly call. Maybe at the $5s but not necessarily at the $11s. My guess is that if you did this no more than one would call.

I also play the PS $11s and my experience is that typically in this situation, I raise to 120 and get one caller, then bet about 150 on most flops. AQ is definitely the weakest hand I'd be raising from the SB with, I'd just complete with AJ or worse.

Also, maybe I'm giving the $11 players too much credit, but I like the other players to notice that if I'm playing a hand early on, I come in with a raise and play it aggressively; just so the more aware players don't perceive me as a fish and give me slightly more respect.

[baudib]

In the SB in this situation (with tiny blinds) I just complete with almost all drawing hands worse than AK and pairs less than JJ with multiple callers.

If you end up hitting your hand you are much more likely to be up against much weaker heands; think about it, if you have AQ OOP do you really want to make someone with QJ or QT to fold? and by not raising it will be extremely difficult for someone with such a hand to let go of it if the flop comes Q-high.

and if you miss the flop completely (at a time early in the SnG when players are likely to call you down with bad draws or middle pair or 33), you can get away from it easily.

[baudib]

plus by not raising hands like this in this position early on, you get credit for being a tight player, which helps when I'm popping T8o for 550 chips later on.

[givememyleg]

In the SB in this situation (with tiny blinds) I just complete with almost all drawing hands worse than AK and pairs less than JJ with multiple callers.

If you end up hitting your hand you are much more likely to be up against much weaker heands; think about it, if you have AQ OOP do you really want to make someone with QJ or QT to fold? and by not raising it will be extremely difficult for someone with such a hand to let go of it if the flop comes Q-high.

and if you miss the flop completely (at a time early in the SnG when players are likely to call you down with bad draws or middle pair or 33), you can get away from it easily.

Hmm that sounds strikingly like my reply, we must play alike!

[GatorJH]

In the SB in this situation (with tiny blinds) I just complete with almost all drawing hands worse than AK and pairs less than JJ with multiple callers.

If you end up hitting your hand you are much more likely to be up against much weaker heands; think about it, if you have AQ OOP do you really want to make someone with QJ or QT to fold? and by not raising it will be extremely difficult for someone with such a hand to let go of it if the flop comes Q-high.

and if you miss the flop completely (at a time early in the SnG when players are likely to call you down with bad draws or middle pair or 33), you can get away from it easily.

This pot just isn't big enough for me to fight over with AQo. I limp here.

Another reason to limp here is that people at the $11's (which I play pretty much exclusively) love to limp with Ax and think when they hit the're golden. If either an A or Q hits the flop you can take it from there and if it misses, nothing lost.