We have evaluated the dynamic aperture in the presence of beam-beam effects for alternative running scenarios, in particular for the commissioning and early operation of the LHC. For top energy of 7 TeV we have studied the effect of increased beta* up to beta* = 2 m and found the expected increase of dynamic aperture for a moderate loss of luminosity. We have further studied the possibility of head-on collisions with a small number of bunches at injection energy
