$10, 9 man tourney.

Hero is UTG with AK, and limps in. I know, I know, but this is all part of my S&G strategy: limp in with AcKd and come over the top all-in. Well, this time I get 3 limpers + the big blind.

Flop is pretty favorable: KcTc9c.

Is this a hand you're willing to go all-in with on the first hand of the tourney, or just get out down only 30 chips?

What I did in white below

BB checks to me so I bet the pot of 150, next player raises to 450 and it's folded back to yours truly. I move all-in, he calls with JhQh. Turn is the 2c and I double through.

TPTK+NFD with the most disguised hand ever?

Stack off.

my early stage strategy is quite simple and effective: win chips without seeing a showdown. I despise raising to 100-150 and having 1 or 2 callers with a hand like AK. I'd rather take down a raise and a couple limps by shoving pre-flop.

Whats the point of a an EP raise of 10% of your stack with AK??? Taking down the blinds means zippos, you're out of position for the rest of the hand to anyone who does call, and you most likely won't like the flop all that much but will feel the need to cbet, so the hand ends up costing you 300-400 chips.

Later on in the tourney, yeah I raise it all day long, early on limp re-raise all day. To me a pot is meaningless in a S&G unless it will increase your stack by 10%+

because people in a $10 sng call raises with way less and stack off with waaayyyyy less than TPTK on the flop?

Exactly, putting someone on a hand after a 100 chip raise is like putting someone on a hand who hasn't looked at their cards yet. Your going to lose significant chips too often for my liking.

r

aise preflop, I don't hate your play but raising is significantly better and it's not even close

I disagree and it's not even close

Like I said, I don't want to "play poker" I want to take down decent pots, so far (and my previous track record, you can look up the S&G challenge thread from a few years back) my results speak for themselves.

ive been toying with the whole limp/push with AK early on in SNGs recently and it hasnt been working so bad......i hate a standard 3-5xBB pf raise early as ur gonna get called by pretty much anything in numerous spots and ur really gambling from the flop onwards unless u hit it hard.

tbh, im on the fence on this one as im trying to change a few things about my SNG play and AK during the early levels is one of them.


and doubling up in 1st hand is worth nothing?

I happen to like your early strategy a lot. I use a similar one. And I agree whole heartedly that early SNG, hell almost the whole SNG, is not about "playing poker" as it is about getting chips.

Oh, and I def. stack this off first hand.