$5+0.50 Early AT, Too Aggressive?
 

In retrospect, if I'm going to do this with AT I might as well do it with anything (it's not like I'm ecstatic if an A comes on the flop and I'm called).

PokerStars Tournament, Big Blind is t20 (8 handed) Converter on pregopoker.com

UTG (t1500)
UTG+1 (t1480)
MP1 (t1200)
MP2 (t1480)
Hero (t1470)
Button (t1780)
SB (t3110)
BB (t1480)

Preflop: Hero is in CO with T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
<font color="gray">UTG folds</font>, <font color="gray">UTG+1 folds</font>, MP1 calls t20, <font color="gray">MP2 folds</font>, <font color="red">Hero raises to t75</font>, <font color="gray">Button folds</font>, <font color="gray">SB folds</font>, <font color="gray">BB folds</font>, MP1 calls t55

Flop: (t180) 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 players)
MP1 checks, <font color="red">Hero bets t100</font>

Re: $5+0.50 Early AT, Too Aggressive?
 

fold preflop, don't get involved this early with marginal hands. As played, flop I'd bet 120.

Re: $5+0.50 Early AT, Too Aggressive?
 

[ QUOTE ]
fold preflop, don't get involved this early with marginal hands. As played, flop I'd bet 120.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're on the same page. I don't like getting involved early, but with the blinds so small my gut feels like I can wring value out of these marginal hands. But I think my gut may be wrong.

Re: $5+0.50 Early AT, Too Aggressive?
 

You would be wrong. It's a 5.50 so you are way often getting called by 1 or more of the 3 still to act + the limper. I could see this being +EV vs weaker players higher up if you had 3 tight players behind.

Re: $5+0.50 Early AT, Too Aggressive?
 

[ QUOTE ]
You would be wrong. It's a 5.50 so you are way often getting called by 1 or more of the 3 still to act + the limper. I could see this being +EV vs weaker players higher up if you had 3 tight players behind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, this makes sense to me. To my credit, when reviewing the hand history my reaction was "yeesh, that wasn't very smart was it?" so maybe I was wrong but am now right, which is a pleasant situation.

Re: $5+0.50 Early AT, Too Aggressive?
 

There pretty much isn't a single card that you want to hit when you raise ATo and get called, and it is expensive to find out where you stand, so I definitely fold. This is a tough hand to play without reads, and, this--combined with the diminishing value of chips earned-- is why this hand is gonna play much different than in a cash game. If you are a gifted hand reader that isn't playing a million tables, I guess its fine to raise, though limping will probably let you extract money from Ax in the blinds when you hit an A on the flop. Facts are though, that you're in the first level of a 5.50 where you don't really have any reads on anybody, as there are a million 5.50 players and like zero 5.50 regs, so just fold. BTW, with the limper if I raise any hand I'm making it 100 here to reduce your implied odds to a set, since they call too much anyway.