Pocket 10's UTG, Am I a Nitty Nit? (1 Viewer)

JMC9389

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So I had this interesting one last night.

We're playing six handed, progressive bounty tournament, no knockouts yet. Hero has been card dead all night and finally picks up a pair of red 10's UTG. Blinds are 75/150 and hero has about 8500 effective. Hero raises to 650, folds around to the button who flat calls, as does the SB who defends. BB reraises to 1300 with 11000ish effective. Hero flat calls as does the button and SB, whom have 13000ish and 7500ish effective.

Hero is cursing under his breath. Pot size is 5200.

We're four ways to the flop and the board comes out 8 8 5 with two diamonds. BB puts in a continuation bet of 2500. Hero has one red diamond, but knows that the villain in the big blind tends to lead out aggressively with made hands. Hero considers this and with the knowledge that there are two players yet to act, makes the angry laydown. Button folds and SB flats.

Pot size 10200.

Of course, the 10 of clubs comes out on the turn. BB continues to fire for another 3000 and SB folds. Hero has no idea of what BB was holding.

Did I make the right laydown here considering my inkling that BB had me dominated with a bigger pocket player and with potential flush draws out there, or am I a nitty nit?
 
I think you needed to re-raise preflop. Flatting with button and SB left to act seems like a leak. TT against 3 players is not a fun spot.

I think if you're folding to a cbet on that flop means you probably should have folded pre-flop if you're putting villain on JJ+.
 
I'm going to assume no antes.

Your preflop raise is just way too large. When stacks get below 100bb with antes a normal size would be 2.5x. In tournaments you have to adjust to saving chips more often. So large preflop raises aren't necessary. When there are no antes and stacks get even shorter, then you can even start to just min raise.

As played, I don't think you can fold flop. It's HIGHLY unlikely the button and SB have you beat her as they didn't 3 bet pre. So unless they are the types to flat with JJ, then you are really only best by an 8 or 55 from them. And calling will get you that info as well as preserve you hand's value against the BB. Though the pot is so big that is going to be hard to fold turn unless it comes an A, K, and possibly Q.

The biggest problem here was your large raise pre. You bloated the pot and have made it so you only have about a pot sized bet left in a 4 way 3 bet pot. Not a good place to be.
 
Why not shove pre-flop? If he will squeeze without a big pair, you're raising 7200 to win the 5200 already in the pot. You can't raise to something like 3000, because you'd have less than a PSB left.

If he calls the shove with KK+ and AK, you have 40% equity!

If this (99+,ATs+,A5s,KQs,AQo+,KQo) was his squeeze range, you have 48% equity vs that.
 
With regard to all your prior actions: The initial raise is a little larger than the Hold'em Solver Standard Preflop Raise Recommendation™, but whatever. There's a lot of room for argument there IMO. I also agree with the flat-call when the BB 3-bets; you're essentially set-mining against a likely overpair, plus two other relatively unknown but not weak hands. It's a thin set-mine but not terrible. Shoving would be silly in that spot.

Folding the flop is not bad either. I'd expect BB to be ahead of tens often enough that you don't want to tangle with him for stacks. Button and SB are both in the hand as well, and either could have you beat. To boot, the diamonds on board slightly dilute whatever advantage you have when ahead, on average. It's definitely a groan-fold, but a fold nonetheless.

This is all assuming no meaningful player reads, since none have been provided beyond "big blind tends to lead out aggressively with made hands" (which only supports folding, if anything).
 
With regard to all your prior actions: The initial raise is a little larger than the Hold'em Solver Standard Preflop Raise Recommendation™, but whatever. There's a lot of room for argument there IMO. I also agree with the flat-call when the BB 3-bets; you're essentially set-mining against a likely overpair, plus two other relatively unknown but not weak hands. It's a thin set-mine but not terrible. Shoving would be silly in that spot.

Folding the flop is not bad either. I'd expect BB to be ahead of tens often enough that you don't want to tangle with him for stacks. Button and SB are both in the hand as well, and either could have you beat. To boot, the diamonds on board slightly dilute whatever advantage you have when ahead, on average. It's definitely a groan-fold, but a fold nonetheless.

This is all assuming no meaningful player reads, since none have been provided beyond "big blind tends to lead out aggressively with made hands" (which only supports folding, if anything).
This most accurately describes what my logic was in flatting. With two left still to act, I had figured that at least one would call. At the time, I thought the best play to be to set mine and fast play it if it hit.

On a very scary and connected board out of position, I didn't have it in me to continue. Both remaining villains are pretty loose, passive, and sticky villains in a vacuum. Villain on the button is a bit less sticky than the SB villain. To put it simply, if either lead out with a bet when I'm up against them, unless I have second nuts or the stone cold nuts, I'm getting out of the way. Neither guy leads out very much.

I think you needed to re-raise preflop. Flatting with button and SB left to act seems like a leak. TT against 3 players is not a fun spot.

I think if you're folding to a cbet on that flop means you probably should have folded pre-flop if you're putting villain on JJ+.
In a later position and if I knew I was going to go heads up, in the moment, I would have considered shipping it. I was still hoping to get to the flop heads up upon the rest still to act seeing BB's reraise. Hindsight is 20/20, but looking back, I think the correct play is to either fold to the BB raise or ship it, especially with passive, sticky players yet to act.

I'm going to assume no antes.

Your preflop raise is just way too large. When stacks get below 100bb with antes a normal size would be 2.5x. In tournaments you have to adjust to saving chips more often. So large preflop raises aren't necessary. When there are no antes and stacks get even shorter, then you can even start to just min raise.

As played, I don't think you can fold flop. It's HIGHLY unlikely the button and SB have you beat her as they didn't 3 bet pre. So unless they are the types to flat with JJ, then you are really only best by an 8 or 55 from them. And calling will get you that info as well as preserve you hand's value against the BB. Though the pot is so big that is going to be hard to fold turn unless it comes an A, K, and possibly Q.

The biggest problem here was your large raise pre. You bloated the pot and have made it so you only have about a pot sized bet left in a 4 way 3 bet pot. Not a good place to be.
Correct, no antes.

My standard open is usually about 2.5 to 3 BB's, but I do like to mix in larger sizing here and there. Out of position with a pocket pair, depending on who I'm playing with, I'll either bet on the large side or limp/re-raise if facing a raise coming after me. With this particular cast of characters, I tend to bet to try and get it heads up to a flop, or take it down preflop, which with the way I was running, I would have accepted at that point. That said, I knew I was doomed as soon as I saw I was going into the flop four ways, and with a pretty wet and connected board, there was no way that I thought I was in any way ahead and was essentially drawing dead to a two outer.

I think if it wasn't four ways going into the flop, I may have continued with the board as it was if I had just one opponent to worry about. Even if I think I'm up against a high pair to my right, there are still two players out to act after me that may very well have an 8 and/or a straight or flush draw. With these two villains on the button and in the small blind, their ranges are pretty much wide open, and the board connects with their ranges better than mine.
Why not shove pre-flop? If he will squeeze without a big pair, you're raising 7200 to win the 5200 already in the pot. You can't raise to something like 3000, because you'd have less than a PSB left.

If he calls the shove with KK+ and AK, you have 40% equity!

If this (99+,ATs+,A5s,KQs,AQo+,KQo) was his squeeze range, you have 48% equity vs that.
Even with the re-raise, I still had about 7 BB's effective. Villain in the big blind here hardly leads out unless he has a high pocket pair or hands like AK or AQ suited. As above, flatting here and trying to catch the set and seeing the flop to see how BB acts was incentive enough to get the information based on what was on the board.
 
Hero's pre-flop raise is way too high from UTG, even at a six-handed table. With TT, you're looking for a little pot control so, if you are re-raised, you have options other than fold or shove. Fortunately for hero, the BB's re-raise was too small and hero had the option to call or re-raise. Folding would have been way too weak for that small of a raise. The question becomes, what is the villain's range to re-raise a large raise from UTG?

My guess is, when the villain saw a 5x over bet, his first inclination was that hero was holding JJ, TT, or 99 (and he just happened to be right). So, villain's range was probably something like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, AQ, AJ, KQ...maybe a couple other hands. So, there are a lot of hands in the villain's range that are crushing TT and a lot more that are coin flips. Therefore, I think both a flat call or re-raise would be a reasonable response, given there was still play left in the tournament, if not for two other players still being in the hand. I think hero needed to re-raise to about 3,500, prepared to fold to another raise pre-flop, but with the goal of inducing some folds (and although unlikely, maybe three folds).

When the board comes 8 8 5 and the BB bets, the question becomes, what did you want the flop to be when you called pre-flop??? That's about as good of a flop as you can expect to get...no over cards. If you're going to fold now, you should have never been in the hand. Only move I see is all-in at that point.
 
So I had this interesting one last night.

We're playing six handed, progressive bounty tournament, no knockouts yet. Hero has been card dead all night and finally picks up a pair of red 10's UTG. Blinds are 75/150 and hero has about 8500 effective. Hero raises to 650, folds around to the button who flat calls, as does the SB who defends. BB reraises to 1300 with 11000ish effective. Hero flat calls as does the button and SB, whom have 13000ish and 7500ish effective.

Hero is cursing under his breath. Pot size is 5200.

We're four ways to the flop and the board comes out 8 8 5 with two diamonds. BB puts in a continuation bet of 2500. Hero has one red diamond, but knows that the villain in the big blind tends to lead out aggressively with made hands. Hero considers this and with the knowledge that there are two players yet to act, makes the angry laydown. Button folds and SB flats.

Pot size 10200.

Of course, the 10 of clubs comes out on the turn. BB continues to fire for another 3000 and SB folds. Hero has no idea of what BB was holding.

Did I make the right laydown here considering my inkling that BB had me dominated with a bigger pocket player and with potential flush draws out there, or am I a nitty nit?
YOU NIT.
 

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