Early AJs Standard Play?

[donkasaurus rex]

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Thank you all so much for the help. A few points I want to make sure I understand:

1. Calling pre-flop makes more sense looking back on it. No way I'm ever folding AJs from any position to a min raise pre-flop at this level. Absolute best hand range I see played this way by random donks is 22-77, SC and Axs. Normally it's even worse hands than this range.

2. Help me understand why it's easier to play post-flop if I simply call pre-flop. Is it basically a matter of how large the pot is compared to how large my stack is? Where it's easy to fold if the pot has 120 chips in it and my stack is 1400 compared to trying to fold if the pot is 500 and my stack is 1100? Does that make sense or am I missing the point?

3. Are my only two real options here push and fold? Simply calling doesn't make much sense to me as I would have absolutely NO clue how to play a blank on the turn plus the large majority of my chips are already in the pot at that point.

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to me, i think calling lets you see a flop OOP for cheap. the trouble is with the raise amount you're making, you're not going to chase anyone out of the hand and give them odds to draw out on you, even if you're got AA or KK. then when you c-bet the flop, you have to bet a LARGER amount than if you had just called preflop.

i feel that by checking, you're disguising your hand a lot more and not committing too many of your chips preflop.

i know i can be very tight weak, but with that sort of action on a semi-coordinated board, TPTK isn't a hand you want to stack off on especially so early. in some SNGs, I've (admittedly reluctantly) folded AJs OOP in the fact of action.

sure, villain could just be making a play with the minraise, but to me it very much looks like the other guy has hit a set with 77 or 88...

-donk

[DevinLake]

Pretty simple hand really...

Preflop: Call. Bloating the pot oop, early with A-rag just doesn't seem right to me some how. If you are going to raise it, raise more, give em a reason to fold.

Flop: Bet, 3-bet. Too coordinated of a board to either fold or call. There are more than enough worse hands paying you off here, but you want to charge any draw.