It's not clear whose play you want us to comment on but I'm going to try both.


UTG I would just call with TT in the early stages first to act. Mainly because I want to avoid the kind of situation which actually arises here, with too many of my chips in the pot with a weak hand out of position. If you do raise, 60-80 is fine, 140 is unnecessarily high. In this particular hand, when UTG gets "mini-raised" to 300 a call is OK for 160 more to try to flop a set.


Which he does, hooray ! But on a very dangerous flop. However, with the reraise it is hard to see the reraiser having a straight. JJ is possible but if he has JJ it's just oh dear how sad never mind - he gets the chips. Given that there is 600 in the pot, 1200 each in our stacks, and a turn of 7, 8, Q or K is going to leave me out of position and guessing, I think I go all-in too.


As for LP you know what I think of these minumum raises. What is the ****ing point ? Call 140, take a flop, see what UTG does and then make a decision. Here, facing an all-in there is now 1800 in the pot 1200 to call. V-e-r-y tricky. Could call or pass.


In general, your point about wanting to go all in because there are so many bad players doesn't make sense. Quite the reverse. Against poor opposition, try to avoid a shootout when you don't know where you stand. Don't give them a chance to get lucky. You can see that I favour keeping the pot small until I feel I have a good situation.


This kind of hand demonstrates the inherent difficulty in the pokerstars NL tournaments. There's nothing wrong with the structure or IMO the cards being dealt, it's just that you are faced with a large number of unpredictable players who like to bet a lot of chips and even go all in frequently. This cuts down the good player's edge considerably. Plus you have no tells and it's difficult (though not impossible thanks to the Notes) to get a line on your opponents. That's why a good player may find it more difficult to win on-line than live, even though the players are worse.


I don't mind though, they're fun and you still have an edge. There is little doubt in my mind that the pot-limit tournaments are easier to win even when you take into account the smaller fields. Just wish they would spread a few more, and for more than $10 !


Andy.