Calling down with TT

[GoblinMason (Craig)]

Given your reads; I would cap this.

UTG+1 is a maniac. TAG knows this. TAG may isolate down to AT or 77 or maybe less. UTG+1 could be on a lot of things; hopefully TAG will be on overs or even Axs.

-Craig

[SeaEagle]

[ QUOTE ]
He had raised exactly twice in those 50 hands, which is about 4%, and I do agree with you about the sample size, which was what swayed me to play.

[/ QUOTE ]
Regardless of the read, it wasn't a single raise but two raises in front of you. Add to this that one of the raises was from someone who appears not to raise much PF and the other is a TAG.

If I had no read at all, I'd be dumping TT in this situation. Your read, however limited, does nothing but add fuel to the folding fire.

[slogger]

Cap this preflop. And stay aggressive on a raggy J-high board postflop. If nothing else, aggression will provide you with information about your opponents' hands, thus allowing you to make better decisions as the hand progresses.

Folding against the opponents you described is a bit weak-tight for my tastes, but it sure beats calling three cold.

[sweetjazz]

Raising 2 out of 50 hands preflop is an indication that he is passive preflop. It's not a huge sample size, but it's worth making an inference based on. His range obviously could be wider than 4% of hands, but it's really unlikely to be very wide.

HOWEVER, I don't think the fact that he raises about 5% of the time preflop necessarily means he raises with the BEST 5% of his hands. He might slowplay big pairs and be raising with suited nonsense or the such here. It would be very helpful to have seen which two hands villain showed down when he raised preflop earlier, or at least one of them. (Also noteworthy would be if he folded by the river, which he almost certainly wouldn't do with a big PP or even big overcards.)

Also, a better read on the TAG would help. Has he been isolating the maniacs limps so far. Has he been at the table with you and the maniac for a while? Even so, he might be isolating with a weak hand here. If the TAG has been folding a lot since the maniac sat down, then I might consider folding, as it is less likely he is isolating with a weak hand.

I do think you have to cap here PF with TT without a better read, but it's close. It might be right to fold 99 here and it's probably right to fold 88 here. And I would certainly fold TT here if I had good reason to believe the maniacs PF raise standards were JJ -- AA and AK. But I think there's enough reason to doubt this, even though he hasn't raised much preflop, to play on. Or if I knew the TAG didn't know how to adjust to the maniac.

Also, as a general comment on post-flop play, I don't recommend raising at any point postflop in order to get information, because you basically can't fold preflop unless the TAG keeps raising to knock you out. You should raise for value based on your reads, and at a certain point you're probably just looking to see a showdown if the maniac keeps playing back at you. Obviously, aggression from the TAG is much more problematic and might cause you to lay down your hand.

[GoblinMason (Craig)]

[ QUOTE ]
HOWEVER, I don't think the fact that he raises about 5% of the time preflop necessarily means he raises with the BEST 5% of his hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. Lots of bad players do this. I used to assume the opposite which caused me to miss out on opportunities. (like this one)

-Craig

[private joker]

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I am considering the weak-tight plan of folding preflop.



[/ QUOTE ]

That's not weak-tight, that's perfectly standard SSH advice. Miller says fold TT to PF 3-bets (and I would especially do so against more passive opponents), and I agree with him (absent a read that the PFRs are raising light).

My default play is to fold here. Cold-calling 3 is pretty lame -- capping is the only other alternative.

[Bill C]

Aren't we being pretty casual about accepting terms like "maniac" and "TAG" with a sample of just 50 hands?

If I don't have any more than this, I'm folding the TT to a 3-bet P/F.

bc