Early AJs Standard Play?

[swingdoc]

Maybe 4th or 5th hand of the SNG. $11 on stars. Villain is unknown, pretty much no read. Is there a standard play in this situation?

PokerStars Tournament, Big Blind is t20 (9 handed) Converter on pregopoker.com

UTG (t1420)
UTG+1 (t1500)
MP1 (t1480)
MP2 (t1500)
MP3 (t1450)
CO (t1470)
Button (t1420)
SB (t1680)
Hero (t1580)

Preflop: Hero is in BB with J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
<font color="gray">UTG folds</font>, <font color="gray">UTG+1 folds</font>, <font color="red">MP1 raises to t40</font>, <font color="gray">MP2 folds</font>, MP3 calls t40, <font color="gray">CO folds</font>, <font color="gray">Button folds</font>, <font color="gray">SB folds</font>, <font color="red">Hero raises to t120</font>, MP1 calls t80, MP3 calls t80

Flop: (t390) 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (3 players)
<font color="red">Hero bets t380</font>, <font color="gray">MP1 folds</font>, <font color="red">MP3 raises to t760</font>, <font color="red">Hero?

[Green Kool Aid]

Just call preflop. The reraise is not good here.

Considering you reraised pf, you have to stack off now.

[donkasaurus rex]

agreed. imho, AJs and AQs are two of the most over-rated hands in NLHE SNGs. sure, raise with them in LP, but OOP and in the blinds, i think calling is a very sound play with the hand and stops you getting committed in tricky spots like this.

as is, i think i could find a fold in this spot, but i'd be a little bit concerned about that board fearing 77 or 88 which fits MP3s acton.

-donk

[TheBlueMonster]

why fold or smooth call to a min-raise early in a SnG??? I like the re-raise. And yes, you're all in baby.

[SkeetyMcdoogle]

That minraise on the flop SCREAMS kk-AA or a set to me, especially at this level

[AMT]

id flat call PF, bluemonstr is on crack (true story) [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

seriously, we're oop and our hand does have some potential to playing it but hero shouldnt be looking to build a pot in this spot before hitting his hand. as played though, in a HU pot id find it hard to fold on this flop readless at this buy in.

[fisheater11]

why do you have to stack off here now kool aid?

This seems like a simple fold pf to me....and to the flop raise I click fold and question my plays up to that point.

[fluorescenthippo]

you make this hand so damn hard by RRing PF. argh its like carrying around 20 pound dumbbells all day for no apparent reason.

[shakyamuni]

[ QUOTE ]
That minraise on the flop SCREAMS kk-AA or a set to me, especially at this level

[/ QUOTE ]

AA and KK don't flat call minraises pf then flat call 3xbb reraises pf with 2 villains...

normally... even at the 11s

[swingdoc]

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.