2 AJ Hands from $5 Stars MTT

[Poker Jon]

Hi All,

AJ is a hand i've been struggling with, especially in the BB later on into tournaments. Sometimes I feel that it's too good to chuck away at the later stages, due to the junk that donks raise with, but then I also seem to have been caught a few times playing it.

Two hands for review for you guys:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t1200 (8 handed) internettexasholdem.com

saw flop|<font color="#C00000">saw showdown</font>

SB (t17238)
Hero (t39835)
UTG (t24000)
UTG+1 (t21014)
MP1 (t17346)
MP2 (t26855)
CO (t13354)
Button (t13305)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">MP2 raises to t2400</font>, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, Hero calls t1200.

Flop: (t4125) 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">MP2 bets t1200</font>, Hero folds.

Final Pot: t5325

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t1600 (8 handed) internettexasholdem.com

saw flop|<font color="#C00000">saw showdown</font>

<font color="#C00000">SB (t24821)</font>
<font color="#C00000">Hero (t45256)</font>
UTG (t27538)
UTG+1 (t11694)
MP1 (t41603)
MP2 (t23380)
CO (t27601)
Button (t21630)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">6 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">SB raises to t8000</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t41600</font>, SB calls t16746 (All-In).

Flop: (t66796) 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

Turn: (t66796) K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

River: (t66796) 3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

Final Pot: t66796

How did I fair in these two hands. FWIW, my image is fairly tight - by no means LAGGGGGYYY at all.

Villain reads -

Hand 1 none at all

Hand 2, he had made a large preflop raise to 6400 once before and taken it down without shoing. Other than that, nothing.


Cheers for any input,

Jon

[PantsOnFire]

Hand 1 - I checkraise to 3000. You are putting out 3000 to win 5300 so this only has to work just under once every three times. You have plenty of chips to make this play. And if it doesn't work, checkraise a strong hand as soon after this hand as possible.

An alternate line is to simply call and set up a bluff if a third club appears.

Hand 2- This is fine. You are ahead of him a lot of the time here and you leveraged some pretty good FE.

[mflip]

Hand 1 - Since you have no reads I'll assume that you or villian are new to the table. Since the bet is so small I'd call the flop and then lead the turn but I think c/r is fine as well, although I'd probably go a little bigger than 3000, ~3500.

Hand 2 - Looks good

[MJBuddy]

Hand 1: Call flop and lead turn if club hits.

Hand 2: I don't like Racing with AJ much. You're so clearly dominated/behind with so many hands that are willing to go all in that it rarely turns out well. If you thought you could get him off the hand with the push, by all means it's right. And really from the size of that raise, normally you're going to be up against 9s, 10s, or Js.

[Poker Jon]

Hi All,

Thanks for responses.

Hand 1 is the exact situation where I never know whether to check raise or lead the flop. For some reason I thought he had a large PP, but seeing as I didn't bet, I never found out.

FWIW, Hand 2 I think is pretty standard, his raising range is massive here and he had A2o and caught the 2 for the 50k pot.

Cheers for the help

Jon