Bounty Tournament – Aces Early
Blinds are 15/30 and I have 1140 in poker chips. I pick up pocket aces in the cut-off (one player before the dealer button).
Big pocket pairs are very vulnerable in the beginning stages of a poker tournament. If you have aces and get multi-way action, you basically feel compelled to make a hug bet on any flop with very little information. You have virtually no way of seeing a set or two pair because your opponents’ preflop calls don’t really have any hand values yet. They will make much looser calls than later in the tournament, and you have not been playing with them long enough to put them on a range of hands. Basically, you’d be guessing on virtually any flop. So, the question is, if you raise with aces early n a tournament and get multiple callers, can you easily let go of your big pocket pair when they start betting heavily?
This is how my hand went.
There is one limper and I raise to 100. The small blind calls 85 more from 15 to 100. The big blind folds, and the limper calls 70 more. I have position against the two other players.
First let’s try and figure out what our opponents have. If the small blind calls the raise, he has to have cards. He is out of position and will not be speculating with complete garbage. Likewise, if he has a very big hand, he will probably re-raise me I an effort to win the pot preflop and not have to play out of position. Since he just called, I give him average to good hands (small pocket pairs and maybe connected paint). He could even have Ace-rag suited and be hoping to hit big. This is a bounty casino games tournament, so people value their draws.
