Tournament situation

[Pab]

I would check in the big blind in this situation. The standard raise would at least yield one caller, and then you have to play out of position which is never desirable. So instead you could end up raising too much (like you did) and still get called, but now there has been a big pot created for no paritcular reason and you still have AQ out of position, again not a favourable situation. say u make the overraise and dont get called u pick up a total of 180 chips which is completely inconsequential at this point and you don get to see a flop with a good hand in AQ.

Id be taking a flop and playing from there, if you hit the flop you know have a deceptively strong hand which a lot of players wouldnt even give you credit for.

[NoflopsHomer]

I would check in the big blind in this situation. The standard raise would at least yield one caller, and then you have to play out of position which is never desirable. So instead you could end up raising too much (like you did) and still get called, but now there has been a big pot created for no paritcular reason and you still have AQ out of position, again not a favourable situation. say u make the overraise and dont get called u pick up a total of 180 chips which is completely inconsequential at this point and you don get to see a flop with a good hand in AQ.

Id be taking a flop and playing from there, if you hit the flop you know have a deceptively strong hand which a lot of players wouldnt even give you credit for.

I totally agree with this, the amount of chips you'll gain versus the amount you're risking is not worthwhile.

[Edit] Also, there is a problem in that the UTG player will be next to act, now assuming we don't know anything about him, any re-raise from him makes you more than likely to dump your hand here, and even if he hasn't limped with a monster, he's still limped UTG which means you have to give him credit for something, and even if he's a complete tool, he may very well get rather attached to his J9suited or whatever and call anyway, (I find a lot players do). The point is that if he calls then that may drag in the other two players and you've created a huge pot whilst being OOP.

[Royal Flush]

I make it 300 to go, if you get 1 caller then take a 1/2 pot bet stab at the flop, if you get more than 1 then you will have to re-asses on the flop.

Pab i like the check play but for me there have to be more limper's than 2 to make me worried about it.

[I, Zimbra]

Id be taking a flop and playing from there, if you hit the flop you know have a deceptively strong hand which a lot of players wouldnt even give you credit for.

Yes, I knew there was another reason I liked this play.

[I, Zimbra]

Not that I ever hit flops though.

[JungleCat03]

I would check in the big blind in this situation. The standard raise would at least yield one caller, and then you have to play out of position which is never desirable. So instead you could end up raising too much (like you did) and still get called, but now there has been a big pot created for no paritcular reason and you still have AQ out of position, again not a favourable situation. say u make the overraise and dont get called u pick up a total of 180 chips which is completely inconsequential at this point and you don get to see a flop with a good hand in AQ.

Id be taking a flop and playing from there, if you hit the flop you know have a deceptively strong hand which a lot of players wouldnt even give you credit for.

good post. I agree with this and this is often how I would play it.

I like to catch people early on in tournies, limp or min raise and try to hit flops hard.
I'm not a fan of biggish raises early on as (this has been pointed out already) you can easily find yourself sticking more chips than you may like in a bluff/semi bluff on the flop.
So for me a min raise and a full pot stab at it post flop, this i find is a good strategy as players will fold weak holdings early on due to the fact that a pot sized bet will be a fair percentage of their chips at this stage.

Not sure I'm a big fan of this. If you min raise, they will almost certainly all call your bet. Pot size now 480. so you bet 480 on the flop into 2 opponents oop when you've missed. I think this is too much of your chip stack to throw at two opponents with position with no information on their hands.

[jezza777]

I agree with Pab . i would check . The deception gained from the check and the fact that it so early in the touney  means I am happy to take a flop here. I would even check QQ and JJ this early on .