Pocket 10s midway through a tournament

[MilwaukeeBull]

Thoughts on how I played this are appreciated.

It is halfway through a tournament. I am below average with about 15k. Tops stacks at the table are around the 35-50k mark. I am in the big blind (500/1000). UTG + 2 made it 4500 to go. I have pocket 10s. If folds to me. I raise it 4500 more. My opponent thinks about it for a minute and calls. At this point, I am confident I have him. He may have JJ tops, but I figure maybe an ace and face. Flop comes 8 8 5. I pushed all in and get called. He has A 8.

When he called I planned to check any A or K that hit the board and push all in with under cards.

Any comments on how I played?

[The4thFilm]

You need to push this pre flop if you are committing 60% of your stack.

[MilwaukeeBull]

But if I push it, I am only getting the 4500. Should I settle for it, knowing I have him going in?

[MLG]

You played this hand very badly. You committed 9000 out of 15000 on a hand that you planned to check fold post flop more than 1/3 of the time. Your reraise was so small that if your opponent had 1 overcard he was getting the right odds to call your reraise and hope to hit. You need to move all-in preflop here. If your plan is really to check-fold a high card flop then you need to just flat call preflop.

[MLG]

If he has Ace-paint you don't "have him" you are even money. If you plan to check-fold an ace or a k then you will be folding on the flop a lot. So yes, settle, and there is not guarantee that he won't call you.

[MilwaukeeBull]

I see what you are saying. Thanks.

[The4thFilm]

[ QUOTE ]
But if I push it, I am only getting the 4500. Should I settle for it, knowing I have him going in?

[/ QUOTE ]

Settle? I'll take a guaranteed 30% increase in my stack with TT for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

[SossMan]

Push or fold. Obviously, you didn't put him on a bigger pair, so go ahead and push.

[BAD BEAT POLICE]

People have 1 of 2 reactions to your bad beat story:

1. They don't care.

2. They are happy.

Please keep your bad beat stories to www.riveredagain.com (http://www.riveredagain.com) and don't clutter up my forum.

-Bad Beat Police

P.S. You owe me $1.

[Cleveland Guy]

[ QUOTE ]
At this point, I am confident I have him. He may have JJ tops, but I figure maybe an ace and face

[/ QUOTE ]


Your logic seems flawed here. If he has JJ - your 4-1 against.

If he has Ace and Face- your 50/50.

How did you figure you had him?

[Cleveland Guy]

I don't think this was a "Bad Beat Post" as much it was a - what could I do differently with my 1010 preflop.

[MilwaukeeBull]

Maybe I shouldn't have said "I had him". Maybe I should have said he knew I had a better hand than his preflop. If he had a much better hand, he wouldn't have hesistated that long to call.

[MilwaukeeBull]

How is this a bad beat story? I am looking for advice on how to play next time.

You owe everyone here $2 for misreading.

[tripdad]

this is most definitely a preflop push situation. you are short stack (though not desperate). you read your opponent to have 2 overcards. you have the 5th best starting hand in poker. you have the opportunity to increase your stack 40% without seeing a flop.

calling 1/3 of your chips is horrible IMO. re-raising just makes no sense...you do NOT want your opponent to see the flop. folding is OK if you respect the raise enough, but clearly your read said you were ahead and could push your opponent off the flop... you just didn't.

cheers!

[MilwaukeeBull]

My thought was that the re-raise would be enough. Thanks for the advice.

[BAD BEAT POLICE]

[ QUOTE ]
How is this a bad beat story? I am looking for advice on how to play next time.

You owe everyone here $2 for misreading.

[/ QUOTE ]

THE BAD BEAT POLICE CAN SEE THROUGH YOUR THINLY VEILED ATTEMPT AT DIGUISING YOUR BAD BEAT IN THE FORM OF A "WHAT SHOULD I HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY" QUESTION.
ITS STILL A BAD BEAT STORY AND WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.

-BAD BEAT POLICE /images/graemlins/cool.gif
P.S. YOU NOW OWE ME $4 FOR LATE FEES.

[tripdad]

i'm afraid i'm with milwaukee on this one, mr. policeman. he has a legit question, especially since he is a newbie.

if you start resorting to gustapo tactics, you will surely be met with civil disobedience. nobody likes a bully. especially when you are supposed to be a public servant.

cheers!

[MLG]

I like a bully, even if he is a little overzealous at times.

[SossMan]

the Bad Beat Policewoman can beat me up any time.

I think the ends justify the means in this case. If she can eliminate even 1 bad beat story, it will be worth it. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
My thought was that the re-raise would be enough. Thanks for the advice.

[/ QUOTE ]

It can't be enough in almost any circumstance.

You reraised 4500. He needs to now call 4500 to win your 9k plus his 4.5k plus blinds of 1.5k, or he needs to call 4.5k to win 15k. That’s better than 3:1. He would be correct to call with A8 unless you have specifically AA. And, with 9k of your 15k in, he can reasonably expect to get your remaining 6k as well if he hits.

Even if you push allin for 15k, he is still calling 10.5k to win about 20k, which is around 2:1 odds. Since A8 is getting around 2.2 to 1 odds to win vs. your TT, he would be making a mistake to call your all-in, but not a big mistake from a purely chip expectation point of view.

Even if he had J2o, he should call your min raise unless he puts you specifically on overpair (AA-QQ).

All in preflop, baby!

--Greg

And the BAD BEAT POLICE had me ROTFL, even if he was a little militant this time.

[tripdad]

don't get me wrong here. i'm all for a little roughhouse from such as our lady with the badge. i guess i'm a little anti-authoritarian too, though. LET FREEDOM RING!

cheers!

[steeser]

I realize it wouldn't have worked in this situation...but what about a stop and go here? TT may be a bit better than most stop and go hands, but you push on any flop, and if the flop has an A, and he has JJ or QQ he may be hardpressed to call you.

[MLG]

You have too many chips for a stop n go. Only use the Stop n Go when you have no folding equity before the flop.

[fnord_too]

[ QUOTE ]
But if I push it, I am only getting the 4500. Should I settle for it, knowing I have him going in?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, getting 6k without a fight is much much better. An overcard will come on the flop about half the time, and what do you do then? What if it comes Q high, do you check and fold, bet out, check and call? You absolutely have to push pre flop here if you are going to play (which is not mandatory at this point, by the way.)

[BAD BEAT POLICE]

[ QUOTE ]
And the BAD BEAT POLICE had me ROTFL, even if he was a little militant this time

[/ QUOTE ]

DO I LOOK LIKE A HE??

DON'T MAKE ME HANDCUFF YOU, SIR. /images/graemlins/mad.gif

[cferejohn]

Haven't looked at other comments, so apologies if I am repeating what others have already said. I don't like your raise. Calling the bet probably pot commits you, and raising *definitely* pot commits you. If you are going to raise, you may as well push. What if he sets you all in, are you going to lay it down for another ~5000 into a pot of ~25K? Even if you are up against an overpair, you're getting odds to call there.

If an A or K hit the board, were you going to fold if he set you all in? Again, I think this would be a tremendous mistake.

If you think UTG+2 is aggressive and would raise this with a number weaker pairs and marginal aces, push preflop. If you think he is a rock who would only raise preflop from EP with a big hand (like AQ/AK, TT-JJ), I think you can lay it down.

I don't think you have enough chips to flat call here and consider folding on the flop. If you wanted to call then get all your chips in on the flop regardless, well OK, but I'd like it better if you were first to act after the flop (i.e. sit-n-go).

To sum up, at these stack sizes, I think that this is a push-or-fold situation. Against an unknown, I'd push.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
But if I push it, I am only getting the 4500. Should I settle for it, knowing I have him going in?

[/ QUOTE ]

If he folds here to a push (and frankly I find it unlikely if he has anything decent), you should be quite happy to increase your stack size by 1/4. You want to give QJ, KJ, etc a chance to lay it down.

[MilwaukeeBull]

In retrospect, I think if I had pushed it, he would have folded. He did not like my re-raise.

Thanks for all the responses.

[DonT77]

[ QUOTE ]

If you think UTG+2 is aggressive and would raise this with a number weaker pairs and marginal aces, push preflop. If you think he is a rock who would only raise preflop from EP with a big hand (like AQ/AK, TT-JJ), I think you can lay it down.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, if you think UTG+2 is an overly aggressive type then you push.

Now then, if you think that he is a rock and would only open raise from UTG+2 with hands AA, AK, AQ, AJ, KK, KQ, QQ, and JJ then this is my rough estimation-

6 ways he could have AA, (hd,hc,hs,dc,ds,cs)
6 ways he could have KK,
6 ways he could have QQ,
6 ways he could have JJ,
16 ways he could have AK
16 ways he could have AQ
16 ways he could have AJ
16 ways he could have KQ

So in 16 of 80 of these hands your opponent has an overpair and you are a 4:1 dog (you'll win ~20% of the time).

In the other 64 of these 80 hands you'll be about a coin flip and win ~50% of the time.

Your expected win rate against these rock-type hands is-
16/80 * .2 + 64/80 * .5 or ~44%.

If he is a super-tight or weak-tight rock then he might fold hands like AQ, AJ, KQ, JJ to your all-in re-raise; that combined with the blind money makes this play close to neutral EV IMO against rock hands.

I guess I'm not adding much here other than to say that I agree with cferejohn that your play here will be very read dependent - push if you think that UTG+2 is LAG, and probably fold if you think that UTG+2 is a rock.