As some of you have seen, I have been beating my head against the wall in a few threads and not understanding some fold spots when people are deep stacked early in a tourney. I understand folding the more specualtive hands early like suited connectors and even smaller pocket pairs. What I was/am struggling with was folding what would be considered premium hands when you have 20BBs later in the tourney. For instance my stance in this thread: …..ckle-game/

As you can see I was struggling with the AQ fold. It just so happens I am reading the book written by PearlJammer, Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand At a Time. In the first chapter he gives reason to fold Js from the BB when facing a 3bet……this killed me. He went through the reason behind his thinking, he felt the 3bet range was As, Ks, Qs and AK because the bet was less than 3x, which told him the 3better wanted action. He felt if the flop came rags he was in a quandry and put him in a spot where he would lose chips to a bigger PP and if he did flop a J he could be up against a higher set if the flop came down AJx.

WHAT??? Do we ever worry about our set being owned like that outsdie of obvious Flushes and str8s on the brd? That seems like a defeatist’s attitude. I want to chip up and hitting a set of Js in a multi-way pot seems like one of the best ways to do it.

I would be willing to call this hand, but not 4 bet looking to set mine. As I have stated in earlier posts, I like to think of Js and 10s as 7s or 8s.

To the pros, do we drop everything outside of As, Ks and AKs to a three bet when in the blinds when you are over 100BBs deep??????? What about if you are on the button???? This seems to take TIGHT to a level that it hurts my head…….