flopping two pair in the blinds (Early in the tourney)

[NNH]

This situation has come up quite a few times lately. Knocked me out of the game in 10th last night.

I'm in the BB w/ T5o. A few callers, I check it. Flop comes 35T. Keep in mind, this is probably the 4th hand of the game. There's about 75 in the pot. I bet out 95 and get 2 callers. K on the turn. I go all in to try and just win it there and am called. Guy turns over KT.

I know I played this hand like crap. So my question is two-fold.
How should I have played a hand like this? If I bet out more on the flop, I figure he still would've called me w/ TP K kicker. I really had no read on him, being the 4th hand and all. Which leads to my other question.

Should I stay away from hands like this early in the game? This has happened to me a few times and all with the same outcome. I get outdrawn. My feeling is to fold and get a better sense for the players before I start betting strong?

[Jason Strasser]

I really dont think you played this hand bad at all. You are going to be ahead of a lot of hands, your opponent got lucky hitting his king. I prefer the line of check raising from the blinds, especially because so many hands love to limp with a ten, and many overaggressive players will bet pocket 6s in position if its checked to them on this flop. I'd check raise an amount where I felt it would not be an extreme overbet to go all in on the turn. If you start with 800 chips, then I'd probably raise the pot bet of 75 to about 225, and then push on the turn regardless of what came.

Top 2 pair in this spot is considerably better than bottom two pair. I still think you played this hand fine, the analysis before was just my alternative.

[fnurt]

There is nothing wrong at all with your flop play. On a raggedy flop like this, you're not guaranteed that anyone will bet and allow you to check-raise. I prefer to bet out, you'll probably get action if someone has a T.

When an overcard comes on the turn, I would probably choose to check. This represents a scared T and you may very well see a big bet from someone who has a K or wants to pretend they have one. You'd be surprised at the number of players who are willing to bluff big at an overcard.

None of this would help against the actual hand of KT, of course, but I think you'd maximize your return against a lot of other holdings. When a guy hits his 3-outer on the turn sometimes that's just life.

[RoyalSampler]

I'm just wondering, what would these guys have called preflop with, that they are now willing to call postflop with? Your post flop bet, I think clearly said I have at least top pair (ignore bluffing). So giving reasonable credit to the callers, I would have to say they have PP's and hit their set or they have the AT, KT or A5s, K5s (less likely). And there are two of them. I'm not saying I would have played this any different, I am certain I would have lost all of my chips also. But I'm wondering if after putting both players on AT or KT, is it really worth an all in? Did you have enough to bet pot again without pot committing yourself? Test the waters? I'm wondering if such thinking might get me out of trouble when I see a similar scenario.

What do you guys think?

[NNH]

It was early in the tourney, so I definitely could've put in a bet on the turn and folded to araise and still had chips to play with. Would I have folded... it would've been tough.

I guess the root of my question was about putting in a big chunk of your chips in the first 5 hands of the tourney. The more tourneys I play, the more I think I should just wait it out or at least keep the pots small in the first few hands, unless I have a monster of course.

Is my thinking correct here? I only play one table at a time, so a lot of my decisions come from studying my opponents. I know a lot of you guys play multiple tables and put it on cruise control for the first couple levels.

Early on in a tournament, do you guys play the player or just the cards?

[RoyalSampler]

Early on I only play the cards. As you say, I'm on cruise control. When, between the 3 tables, I am down to ~6 opponents, then I can start playing the player a little. Certainly when it's heads up. But tracking early on I often find useless because the only standouts are those the call with stupid stuff and they are out before the end anyway.

[Jason Strasser]

I disagree with any notion that you should avoid putting in chips early. If you have an edge, especially as large as you did on this hand, you would be wrong to back off. You have a monster. I'd be making the same aggressive plays with a hand like bottom 2 pair as well, although it is ten times more vulnerable than top 2.

With regards to playing the player or the cards, I'm a bit confused. Here the player could have a ton of hands. Ones probably involving a ten.

Stay aggressive here. I'm very willing to commit my stack if I'm ahead. If you are behind, or are sucked out on, then move on, you didn't waste a whole lot of time and it wont really hurt your bottom line too much.