10-10 UTG

[Brad F.]

Thanks fnurt.

Thinking about it more I maybe am playing too scared in EP, and possibly to comfortable in MP-LP. I love a good aggressive crazy style, but these types of hands scare me.

Don't you think most AK reraise preflop?

Brad

[JudoGirl]

If my math doesn't fail me, I believe there is about a 28% chance that someone will have been dealt AA-JJ, AKs, or AKo at a 10-handed table when you've been dealt TT. Given those numbers, and given the described position in the tournament, I think TT is a good hand and should be played aggressively.

With TT, I generally put in a raise of around 5x bb. Sometimes I'll limp, though, or put in some other size raise. I'd prefer to take the pot preflop as TT can be difficult to play oop when overcards flop, but not impossibly so. If one overcard flops, a continuation bet is obvious...if 2 or 3 overcards flop, well, you need to have been paying attention to your opponents...

I think most good players are folding a lot of the overcard hands behind when UTG raises 5xBB. I'm going to fold or push to a reraise behind, depending...

Fire up PokerStove and put TT against AKs and KQ (or AQ) and you'll see you're ahead of both of them. Change KQ for QJ and you have problems. But QJ isn't likely to hang around to your 5xbb pf raise...

[ QUOTE ]
You're on the button with TT. Someone raises in early position, there's one call, and the action is on you. You can debate the proper action in this spot, but wary of the EP raiser, you flat call.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your scenario is so vague, how do you expect people to rationally respond to it?

What is EP? Is it UTG? UTG+1? UTG+2?

Where is the cold call relative to the raise?

Is the EP raiser at UTG and the colder caller at UTG+1? In this scenario, depending on the strength and stack size of these two players and the blinds, I could easily envision letting TT go here. In an earlier response, I thought I gave some examples of how TT loses a boat-load of value in a multiway hand.

Or is the raiser at UTG+2 and the cold caller at CO? In this case, a button overcall is a completely different situation.

Further how much money is being bet? Is the button being bet into for his/her tournament life, or just a minor fraction of the stack?

And on it goes .... if you want to discuss a realistic scenario, then you need to be less vague.

[ QUOTE ]
The flop comes J77 with 2 hearts. The raiser bets and now it's on you. Now personally, to just give it up here seems pretty weak, but if you want to play, you're probably going to have to raise here ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Call it weak if you want to. The one thing I will agree with is that if you want to play, then almost surely you not only have to raise, but likely raise for whatever is left in your stack.

And this is the entire quandry in a nutshell with a middle pair like TT. It is extremely hard to get a high degree of confidence whether or not you are way ahead or way behind. The problem is further compounded because if you decide to plunge, then you probably have to plunge with most or all of your stack.

Call me crazy, but I don't like to chunk with my stack when I am highly uncertain of my standing in the hand, or highly certain that a bluff will work.

And this is the real key point ....

If you play the Tens, are you betting/raising for value?

Or are your betting/raising as a semi-bluff or total bluff?

This may seem like splitting hairs, but I can assure you it is not. It goes to the root core of your thinking about how, when, where and why you bet.

Personally, if you are going to chunk bet with TT and are doing it under the auspices and rationale of a bluff or semi-bluff, then perhaps there is some rational justification for doing so. But then what do you do if the opponent fires back or calls? Then you have put your entire tournament life on the line for a middle pair, with which you have no idea whatsoever if it is good or not. Again, this is not a desirable scenario.

On the other hand, to use one of the scenarios discussed, if you have TT UTG, with a flop of J77 and a couple of players in the hand, and in your mind you decide that you are betting the Tens for value, then I would say that your logic is probably not sound.

So now we are down to betting TT UTG as a bluff or semi-bluff. Is this a scenario where you want to put your tournament life on the line? When you are a long way from the money, yet in no immediate danger of being blinded out? Call me crazy, but I think not.

[bruce]

Pocket Ten's is way too much hand to muck just b/c you are UTG. Perhaps during the first couple of levels I may limp with them but once we get into the "real" tournament with antes I will play them aggressively nearly every time. If I wait for a truely big hand UTG I might not ever get to play one and against my observant opponents I might as well turn my cards over.

There are thousands of combinations with pocket Tens where you will be a big favorite on the flop. On the flop with an overcard playing pocket Tens can get challenging but if we're playing in a big tournament I'll assume we know how to play.

It's mathematically unsound to assume if you're raised with
TT that you're against a pocket pair higher than yours. Pocket pairs lower than Ten's negate pocket pairs bigger than Ten's so the majority of times you'll be against Ak or
maybe AQ.

See my post from a month ago titled Pocket Tens against Dan H. at the Legends.

Bruce

[BlackRain]

Basically agreeing with nath, fnurt and others for the reasons they have already given. I'm raising this 4xBB preflop. I am willing to let go of this to a massive re raise preflop but it is very player dependent and I would make good use of my time clock. I make the continuation bet that you made on the flop. I'm calling the re raise on the flop most of the time.

[nath]

I've been reading your replies and I don't know what else to say except that you seem to be very afraid of going broke in each individual situation, which I believe misses the point.

Talking about things like "tournament life" is meaningless: It does you no good to stay alive if you aren't using that life to progress toward your goal. Since the goal is not to avoid potential danger, but to finish first, you have to accept some risks. It's gambling, after all.

The reason the tens are a good hand to play is the combination of stack size, tournament stage, and hand strength. With our stack size and still far from the money, "survival" only means we'll get blinded out later than we would if we got broke with the tens now.

You won't get anywhere in a tournament if you aren't willing to take some chances. I can't put it more succinctly than that.

[ QUOTE ]
Since the goal is not to avoid potential danger, but to finish first, you have to accept some risks. It's gambling, after all.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's an old adage from motor racing: "To finish first, you must first finish."

And sorry, I disagree completely with your statement: "It's gambling after all."

I would hope that gambling is the last thing in the world that it would be called. I can think of about 15 or 20 different ways to describe poker, and the word gambling isn't in there.

[ QUOTE ]
You won't get anywhere in a tournament if you aren't willing to take some chances.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are all kinds of risks, including calculated risks, foolish risks and unnecessary risks. Playing TT UTG aggressively in the OP scenario borders between foolish and unnecessary, IMHO.

As I said before, I'm just an amateur and certainly no expert. But if you want to compare track records, here's mine: 4-W's, 1-2nd, 1-3rd and a dozen other FT's in about 190 tournaments, and more importantly, a little over $8K net profit.

I'm not saying that I would never play TT UTG. I just don't think getting in deep was right for that scenario.

I was referred to this thread and read it before running into this hand last night. I had a stack of 2100, UTG+3 and was dealt pocket tens. The table was tighter than useual for a MTT (buy in of 30+3).

Blinds were at 75/150, giving me an M of just under 10, and the table was full.

UTG (1500 stack) was a bad loose player and made it t300 BB UTG.

Next I at UTG + 3 pushed my stack of 2100.

Two to my left (stack of 3200) called and eveyone folded to the UTG and he called.

Hands showed
UTG AK
Me TT
2 to my left 99

So in the end I got 2:1 pot odds on 1.2:1 shot at winning. Plus I had fold equity.

Given I was just staying in by aggresive betting, I hadn't gotten any cards to speak of in 1.5 hours of play, I saw this as a chance to get from a low to med stack instead of floundering in the bottom 10 of those remaining.

I'd play this the same way again even though a K came up on the river and I lost (though I did win the side with the 99).

Who's with me and who's not in agreement?

[nath]

I play it the same way every time-- but that is probably clear by now.