Looking for strategy - how to play AA early in a tourney

[vegasjj]

This is a question that I had asked myself a few times and really am not able to decide if there is a strategy that is more likely to be effective - to be more precise my question is:

What strategy would improve your odds of being successful with AA early in a tourney ?

Would the way you play depend on any / all of the following
- Buy-in amount
- Number of participants
- Pay-out structure (ie very top heavy or more flat)
- Blind level duration
- Other ???

The issue obviously is - although you have clearly a superior hand pre-flop, should you risk your tourney life this early? Of course the other argument is - if you do not take such an opportunity to double-up when on earth will you? You have to take the opportunity, and live with the consequence...

I am posting here an example (really not intended as a bad beat story at all) but just to illustrate how easy tourney life ends. This was about 2 days ago.

Buy-in $2.25
Added $1,000
1800+ participants
180 people ITM
10 minute blinds
Payout VERY VERY heavy towards the winner

Second hand of the game:
TEXAS_HOLDEM, NO_LIMIT, T5-290515148-2
played at "Table #173" for USD TC from 2012-12-13 19:02 until 2012-12-13 19:03



Seat 1: elis18 (1,900 in chips)
Seat 2: dzob_killer (2,550 in chips)
Seat 3: fluffykid (2,000 in chips)
Seat 4: vegasjj777 (2,000 in chips)
Seat 5: IbeeC (1,900 in chips)
Seat 6: Cirnis (1,680 in chips)
Seat 7: LucajaBrasi (1,990 in chips)
Seat 8: itwojakasa (1,980 in chips)
Seat 9: klainmain222 (2,000 in chips)
Seat 10: GirlyWhirly (2,000 in chips)



ANTES/BLINDS
itwojakasa posts small blind (10), klainmain222 posts big blind (20),

PRE-FLOP
GirlyWhirly folds, elis18 folds, dzob_killer folds, fluffykid folds, vegasjj777 raises to 80, IbeeC raises to 270, Cirnis folds, LucajaBrasi folds, itwojakasa calls 270, klainmain222 folds, vegasjj777 raises to 690, IbeeC calls 690, itwojakasa calls 690.

FLOP [board cards: 4C,3H,KH]
itwojakasa bets 1,290 and is all-in, vegasjj777 calls 1,290, IbeeC folds.

TURN [board cards: 4C,3H,KH,3D]


RIVER [board cards: 4C,3H,KH,3D,KD]


SHOWDOWN
itwojakasa shows [ JC,KC ]
vegasjj777 shows [ AH,AS ]
itwojakasa wins 4,670.



SUMMARY
Dealer: LucajaBrasi
Pot: 4,670
elis18, loses 0
dzob_killer, loses 0
fluffykid, loses 0
vegasjj777, loses 1,980
IbeeC, loses 690
Cirnis, loses 0
LucajaBrasi, loses 0
itwojakasa, bets 1,980, collects 4,670, net 2,690
klainmain222, loses 20
GirlyWhirly, loses 0

[Fielmann]

What strategy would improve your odds of being successful with AA early in a tourney ?

Don't really like the wording of this question. Your goal shouldn't be to win pots but to make plays that bring in the most in the long run. With AA it can often happen that the correct way is such that will involve the most risk, i.e. that will actually maximise your odds of NOT being successful in that particular hand.

Would the way you play depend on any / all of the following

- Buy-in amount - yes
- Number of participants - no (Early on this usually isn't an issue.)
- Pay-out structure (ie very top heavy or more flat) - no (Same. Barring some ultra special circumstances like when there are 10 participants and 9 get paid the same amount.)
- Blind level duration - no
- Other ??? - yes. For example:
- Position
- Stack compared to blinds (the M)
- Stack compared to current pot (the SPR)
- The action before me
- Opponents' tendencies, ranges, stack sizes
- My image

The issue obviously is - although you have clearly a superior hand pre-flop, should you risk your tourney life this early?

Yes. 'Tournament life' really isn't a suitable concept here. Early in a normal tournament maximising your chip expectation is as close as it gets to maximising your money. (The differences arise near the bubble. But unless it's a rare satellite scenario, there's not going to be a spot to fold AA pre.)

The hand you posted is well played. You could also have 4-bet all-in pre.

[vegasjj]

Don't really like the wording of this question. Your goal shouldn't be to win pots but to make plays that bring in the most in the long run.

On re-reading my question - I did not really word it well, what I really have in mind is... is there a way to somewhat reduce the risk of being eliminated when you have AA very early in a tourney.

I know that the risk exists and cannot be eliminated, but CAN IT BE REDUCED SOMEHOW?

Personally I would much rather gain 50% or even less chips with the AA if I could lower my risk of elimination this early.

Yes. 'Tournament life' really isn't a suitable concept here. Early in a normal tournament maximising your chip expectation is as close as it gets to maximising your money.

Can you please explain this more to me. I agree and understand that gathering chips early is what we want to do. But do we not want to "BE/STAY IN TH GAME" in the first place?

[Fielmann]

This post will assume that we are early in a normal top-heavy tournament. Things can be a little different near the bubble.

On re-reading my question - I did not really word it well, what I really have in mind is... is there a way to somewhat reduce the risk of being eliminated when you have AA very early in a tourney.

I know that the risk exists and cannot be eliminated, but CAN IT BE REDUCED SOMEHOW?

Of course it can. Just fold or at least avoid going all-in. The problem is that such plays would be terrible, because they would not be the ones that bring in most money in the long run.

Personally I would much rather gain 50% or even less chips with the AA if I could lower my risk of elimination this early. [---] I agree and understand that gathering chips early is what we want to do. But do we not want to "BE/STAY IN TH GAME" in the first place?

'Elimination', 'staying in the game', etc., as independent concepts that should influence our plays, do not exist. If you have 2000 chips and you lose them all it is for all practical purposes no worse than having 4000 chips and losing half of them. It would also be two times less worse than having 10,000 chips and losing 4000 of them.

Imagine we have 2000 chips and a choice between two plays. One has 50% chance of winning 300 chips and a 50% chance of losing 200 chips. The other play has 50% chance of winning 3000 chips and 50% chance of losing 2000 chips (i.e. getting you eliminated).

The expected value of the first play is 0.5*300 + 0.5*(-200) = 50
The expected value of the second play is 0.5*3000 + 0.5*(-2000) = 500

As you can see the second play is 10 times better, even though it gets you eliminated half the time and the first play never does.

[Luco]

...'Elimination', 'staying in the game', etc., as independent concepts that should influence our plays, do not exist. If you have 2000 chips and you lose them all it is for all practical purposes no worse than having 4000 chips and losing half of them. It would also be two times less worse than having 10,000 chips and losing 4000 of them...

I have to disagree here. 2,000 chips are worth a lot more to me when I have a 2,000 stack than a 10,000 stack. I can come back from losing 2k in the latter example. But you already know about chip value theory


Vegasjj, the best way to maximise your preflop equity with AA is to try to go to the flop against only one villain. More villains = less equity (but not less EV, as Feilmann hinted at).

You have to understand that you're going to lose at least 20% of the time with AA. Deal with it, get over it, and fistpump with joy every time you get your chips in the middle with them, regardless of the outcome.

[Pascal]

You have to understand that you're going to lose at least 20% of the time with AA. Deal with it, get over it, and fistpump with joy every time you get your chips in the middle with them, regardless of the outcome.

This is assuming you're all in pre flop FWIW.

The simple way to play AA in early game is optimally - open, 3bet if opened, 4bet if opened etc. There's no point getting tricky and flatting a 3bet if you're not fully confident in how to play anyway. It doesn't matter if you look ridiculously strong if you're playing low buy-in tournaments as people just won't realise.

Post-flop, assign your opponent a range and play against that. Asking how to play AA is like asking how do I answer a question - it depends on what the question is. The board, the villains and their actions will all have a massive part to play