AQo £5 sng problem.

[Goldenjew]

Just a general question, with AQo utg, assuming its the first level of a sng with no reads, how do you play this hand? I personally like a raise to 100 as it drives out the gravel hands and creates a nice pot. If i whiff/make a hand that is not the best I can get away from it. My friend advocates flat calling as our position is terrible, based on our starting stack of 1k and the blinds are 7/15. He also doesn't mind a fold in that spot. Is this too a tricky situation to be raising 7.5bb or will we get outflopped more often than not? How does this change with AQs?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Jonny and Tom.

[Doofus]

I agree with your friend (limp/fold) and I think 100 is overkill, you will only get action from strong hands (although this is a 5)especially if you get attatched to the pot and can't help firing empty barrels. I like to maximize implied odds at these stages for my small pairs and unpaired connectors and decrease them for my opponents with premium pairs. I like the odd raise too for metagame reasons ie to get more action on your more premium hands against observant/pokertracker oriented opponents.

[MightyA6]

AQ is just ace high for the moment. Early in the tourney UTG, I either fold or just limp at a full table. With 5-7 players I consider raising normally! If I have many opponents contesting the pot with me and the flop is scary, I give it up. I'd mostly fold early thought!

[sixfour]

Limp it. Raising isn't great this early (raising to 100 is horrible spew), and folding isn't either.

Does Crypto still have decent numbers playing there? I used to play there but left when they [censored] about with the rakeback

[taipan168]

With that structure I would raise AQo and AQs to about 50 preflop. Some advocate a fold but at low buyins I think you have the best hand very often if an A or Q flops and raising has a number of advantages over calling:

a) Everybody might fold and you take the blinds
b) Limping will mean that you will face the flop with lots of opps, so even if an A or Q comes you can't get your chips in with confidence
c) Raising gives you the initiative on the flop if called - you could take the pot away with a c-bet.

[ger664]

The buyin here is not your standard low buy-in. This is a crypto game and since betfair left the network last year it has ~4500 players at peak. At peak you will do well to see 4 of these games running. IMO these play the same as stars $27.

OP raising 10% of your stack here is really bad. Especially as the blinds rise quite steeply on crypto.

If you are going to raise make it t45-t50. Limping is also an option so long as you can get a way from TPTK/TPGK in a big multiway pot face action on the flop.

My preference is to raise this spot.