TT and a simple push?!

OK, brief background first ……

I have decided to dedicate a bit of time and effort into playing some MTT’s in a (vain!) attempt to improve my tournament play in light of (in particular Fnord’s!) comments made to previous posts regarding the need to learn to play more according to stack, player and position rather than the cards I am actually dealt. I also need to learn to crank up the aggression, which I am starting to do more than usual (I think!).

The upside of this is that I am winning far more small pots than I usually do; the downside is that the swings in my chip stack are greater than before, but I guess this is one of the things I have learn to take whilst I attempt to perfect my game, yeah/no?!

Anyway, the following occurred last night so I thought I would throw it open for discussion.

Apologies for the lack of precise HH, but I find that getting it from Prima is like sitting at a table without someone claiming that online poker is rigged (i.e. virtually impossible!). Anyway, this is 99% accurate.

I was playing in the 10k May Madness on Bet365 (Prima Network).

• 3,700 entrants
• Top 50 paid
• Down to the final 40
• I’m about 32nd
• Blinds = 5,000/10,000
• Avg Tourny Stack = 80-90,000
• Stacks at my table = 230,000 (BB)
• 170,000 (seat before me)
• 4 on 100-120,000
• 2 on 50-75,000
• My Stack = 55,000
• I am sitting in the CO and I get dealt TT

Here to me is a simple push and even if I only scoop the blinds, it’s 15k I didn’t have at the start of the hand. However, UTG then pushes AI for ~75k. It’s folded round to me and I push as well. Everyone else folds, he flips AK and the flop comes A J K, no T or Q to be found and I’m out.

Not complaining about that, I fully enjoyed the experience and feel that my tourny game came on a little last night. I have been getting myself into good positions in a few tournaments this week, but haven’t been able to really cash in. I might be on IRC at some point, begging for assistance if I get myself into a good position again!!!!!!!!!

Right, my point ( …… at last!) is, whilst TT is a relatively straight-forward push in this situation, does the push by UTG influence your decision? My logic is that UTG is not going to push with any old crap in this situation, which in turn leads to me concluding that he MUST have had an Ace and probably a face card to go with it ( …… and I was proved right!!). He has no need to push just yet because he can probably just about afford another BB and SB before pushing again from LP.
Therefore, I briefly considered whether I should really put myself into a coin-flip situation here. UTG may well have even had me dominated with pp of face cards as well as the potential risk of the BB calling due to the very good pot-odds on offer (……~60,000 to win ~200,000 and knock two players out) if he had some kind of hand. I may be able to lay this and look to start pushing from all positions (I have 4 or 5 more hands before the BB comes to me again).

I don’t want to be abused as being potentially weak for not considering pushing here, I am just opening up my brief thought process prior to pushing for discussion ( …… with the hope of getting some insight that might help my tourny play).

Apologies for the rather disjointed post, but hopefully you will get the gist of what I am getting at!

UTG at 7.5-8x BB probably realizes the situation that he is in. Push or Fold mode. However, heprobably also realizes that there are stacks smaller than him as well, who could also bust out before him. Then again, depending on theplayer that he is, All or Nothing or Happy to ITM, his range of hands would also fluctuate.

Assuming that he is one who wants to double up in order to run for the final table, and is therefore a bit more aggresive. 77 88 99 TT JJ QQ KK AA AK AQ.
3 hands you dominate
TT is unlikely, you have 2 of them already
4 of them kill you
2 of them you coinflip.
Pokerstove has you at 50 50.

Agaisnt someone who you have pegged as tighter.
You drop the 77 88 99.
That puts you down to 40% of winning.

Your fold equity drops as ur stack size drops. The chancesof you getting osmeon to fold to your all in steals drops. You realistically have maybe 10 Hands before your all ins will get called by anyone. Whenthe blinds get around. Your FE will be done. This is the best hand your going to get within the next 10 hands. Its simply too bad that someone went all in before you, but its a simple call. Realistically if you want any chance of winning it, I think you have to call. Folding your TT here would be disastrous. If this situation happened a million times, TT would be much better than the average hand you will catch within the next 10-15 Hands.

Have to be happy with a flip here and pray he dones't have a bigger pair, pot is giving you the right price and if you have to pay the blind again, you'll have to double up twice just to get back to where you'd be if you double now, and you'll be in flips then more than likely anyway.

i agree with everything thats been said, you got what you wanted but it didn't work out. good play.

This guy is UTG, and the blinds definatley will hurt his stack quite a bit. He could push a wider range of hands then VQ said If you ask me. I think you have to go in thinking you are most likely ahead with TT. You where but he caught, oh well, gg, thx, join the next.

Originally Posted by boostNslide

This guy is UTG, and the blinds definatley will hurt his stack quite a bit. He could push a wider range of hands then VQ said If you ask me. I think you have to go in thinking you are most likely ahead with TT. You where but he caught, oh well, gg, thx, join the next.

At a full table Im not sure how much looser he could be, and it also depends on what type of player he is. The blinds might hurt but every good player has some semblance of patience. Im not sure what type of fold equity this player has at this table, and whether or not he would risk pushing with KQs and the like.