Preflop: Pocket Tens

[Warik]

I always have trouble with these.

If it's limped/folded to me, it's an easy raise.

If it's raised before me, it's an easy 3-bet.

But if I raise and it comes back to me 3-bet, I have a difficult time capping. After all, what hand does someone 3-bet preflop that is worse than TT?

Flawed thinking? Should I treat TT like JJ-AA preflop, i.e. "push the raise button until it's not there anymore?"

[Rico Suave]

Warik:

I am not sure autocapping JJ or QQ is necessarily correct. Same of TT. Just calling a 3-bet is often the correct play, imo.

--Rico

[TxSteve]

i agree...i rarely cap with TT

but will occasionally depending on what i know about the remaining opponents

[Jezebel]

[ QUOTE ]
If it's raised before me, it's an easy 3-bet.


[/ QUOTE ]

TT should be folded to a tight EP raise IMO. Capping with TT is rarely if ever correct.

[Tosh]

Your thinking is very flawed but not how you think.

You're looking for a set pattern for play, poker is not like that, you need to play your hand based on the situation and your opponent. Sometimes you will do one thing sometimes the other, but it is important to not look so 1 dimensionally.

[Warik]

[ QUOTE ]
You're looking for a set pattern for play, poker is not like that, you need to play your hand based on the situation and your opponent. Sometimes you will do one thing sometimes the other, but it is important to not look so 1 dimensionally.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not looking for a recipe for winning play, just guidelines. There are correct actions to take when one does not know his opponents very well. I typically do not know my opponents very well unless they are labeled with PT notes because I multitable. If I've got notes on a guy who rarely raises and then he's raising from UTG, I'm definitely going to play differently.

But if nondescript player raises from nondescript position and nondescript players call, there's got to be an automatic, non-situational decision to be made, which is what I'm looking for. When I know who I'm up against, I know the right move. It's when that information is unknown that's a problem.

I typically call a 3-bet instead of cap it. I'm wondering if that is typically the right move. If I said that I typically limped with aces then everybody would tell me that it's typically better to raise. What's the deal with 10s?

[sfer]

I don't like calling with TT when it's 3 bets to me unless there are several coldcallers in there too. I like capping even less.

[Rico Suave]

Hey sfer:

[ QUOTE ]
I don't like calling with TT when it's 3 bets to me unless there are several coldcallers in there too. I like capping even less.


[/ QUOTE ]

I wasn't advocating calling 3 cold, but rather when I raise with TT and I get 3-bet, I would generally just tend to call rather than cap.

--Rico

[chesspain]

Warik,

I don't think there is a cookie-cutter, "correct" approach for whether to call or cap with TT, simply because to play so predictably against potentially observant opponents will cost you more in the long run than the 1-2 SB extra you may win or lose based soley on mathematical EV. Indeed, I can't imagine that it can be good to telegraph to observant opponents that you always cap with, say, AA/KK/QQ/AKs and call with all other hands.

Although I am not always capable of doing this in the heat of the moment, I think that once it comes back to you reraised, you need to try to quickly formulate a plan on how you want to play your cards based upon the different types of playable flops that might fall--and then make your pre-flop decision the foundation for your play.

What do all of you think about this?