AK and AQ

A lot of the sit and go tournament literature suggests that in the first three rounds of the tournament, you should be tighter than normal. Some go as far as to say only play AA, KK, and QQ, and if you do decide to play any other hands, notably AK or AQ, you should not raise with them. You should fold AK and AQ after the flop and play it hard if it hits. Conversely, new strategies, such as the one presented in Kill Phil, have emerged which instruct players to go-all when they get AK or AQ early in sit and gos. I disagree with both of these strategies, here’s why.
Case 1: Limp in
Imagine you are in the first 10 hands of a sit and go, and you pick up AK or AQ. You decide not to raise the hand. No one else raises and you go to the flop five handed. The Ace hits giving you top pair, top or second kicker. You bet 3/4 the pot and are called by one or two players. What do you do now?
By not raising, you have cause yourself a tremendous headache. Here’s why:
1. Unless you have played with these players before, you have no idea what types of players they are. It is common to be playing with complete strangers. Therefore, you have no idea what they might possibly have.
2. You’ve got a hand that can be sticky. If there are no draws out there, you will feel confident that probably you have the best hand. The problem is that at a ten handed table, two players are dealt aces in the same hand 75% of the time. You could have just let a weak Ace in who has two pair. Plus, the always hard to detect trips could be out there.
3. Some players would consider this a cheap call to draw to flush or straight draws given the stage of the tournament. You may be calculating pot odds and implied odds, but a lot of players aren’t. If they don’t think it’s a lot of chips, they will call and hope to get lucky.
4. You’ve left yourself no play on fourth street. Here are all the situations:
A. It checks around. You may survive here, but you also just broke the cardinal sin in Poker twice in one hand. You gave an opponent(s) another free card to beat you
B. An opponent makes a small raise at you. You are probably not going to fold here with this hand.
C. An opponent makes a large raise at you. I’d probably lay it down, but could the average player? There is a compelling case to call or re-raise here unless and obvious straight of flush is out there. You only get so many good hands in a sit and go and you have to push them hard.
D. The obvious draw misses on fourth street. The action checks to you. An opponent on a draw may fold if you stick in a nice bet on the turn, but is sticking in a nice bet on the turn a good idea? Your idea at the beginning of this hand was not to lose your shirt early in the tournament. The person called a pot sized raise on the flop, so what hands are they likely to fold? In all likelihood another bet here just makes the hand harder to get away from.
Seeing how calling here has complicated the hand for you, it’s easy to see how not raising here can escalate to cost you a lot of chips and a headache to boot.
Scenario 2: Go All-In
I have seen this play in a lot of sit and gos recently, and many of the those times, the person was put out of the tournament.
The reason I believe that this is such a bad play is because there is only one scenario in which you are a significant favorite. Here are the scenarios:
1. The only scenario that you can realistically expect a call is when your opponent is holding a pocket pair. In this situation, you will either be a slight underdog or in a coin flip situation. With pairs occurring every one in seventeen hands, there is a good chance that you will run into a pair.
2. Another semi-realistic scenario is that the other play calls with suited connectors. This is likely in the latter part of a sit and go, but the player would likely fold here. Should they call however, you are only a 12-10 favorite. You are really looking at nearly another coin flip situation.
3. The other player calls you with a weaker ace or King . This is the only scenario you really want. You are a 70% favorite, but you still lose 30% of the time
The moral of the story is that by going all-in, you will either be an underdog going into the flop or you will induce a lot of folds. Why would you want to risk all your chips when the most you will probably win is the blinds?
In conclusion, I would suggest raising the hand from the start and playing it normally regardless of the level of the sit and go. It will make your post-flop decisions easier, and also allow you to get away from the hand with a small loss if you need to