you have 10,000 chips, blinds are 600-1200. second shortest stack, eight handed.

you are first to act

you pick up pocket 10s, both black suited

you raise the pot, it being PLHE

You get one caller after a long dwell, who has about 20,000 chips. Solid player. Likely to have a strong hand.


The flop comes



You are first to act

a) Check?
b) All In?

Thanks for the advice on the previous one........

a) I did call.

b) Did anyone give any consideration to what the BB acting behind me might have?!??!

Anyway...

I called, and resigned myself to my fate, whether good or bad...

I was stunned when the BB called in a flash.

The raiser had JJ including a club, so was "semi" at it with his straight and possible flush draw

I had top pair and a straight draw(sort of)

The BB had QQ and had flopped his set!

No help from there on in and the BB sent us both home, he finished second on the night.

I wasn't unhappy with the call, it just got me thinking that I hadn't paid enough/any attention to the BB behind me!

Local tournament, mid stages, four tables left, each 8 handed. 250 freezeout

tough table, one successful cash player, two pros, rest regular faces. No mugs. All more experienced than me

I have 11,000 chips...below average..haven't see much but have nicked a few pots, been caught a few times too.

My aim: not to get to late stages very short stacked as usual!

I am dealt KdQd in cut off. Blinds are 400-800

Early position player raises to 2500. He has c21,000 chips. Well known player locally (you'd know him!), running hot, I know he can make moves

I call (thoughtsl?) Big blind also calls

8,700 in pot


Flop

10c

BB checks, Early position raiser bets 18,500 ALL IN.

Your choice of play and why please!!!!

" You're going to be out on the bubble occassionally. someone has to be."


I was. With <10SB left i found an Ace/5 suited, moved in and the big stacked BB called with Ace/higher kicker. Thank you and goodnight. Wanted to wait for something better but was going to be in the blinds next hand so it was now or never....   

at the beginning of the day the blinds were 5k/10k with a 1.5k ante, so c27k in each pot to start

hence the tikay/mel lofthouse's with 50k had to stick it in reasonably quickly!

Last night, there are 16 players left in the tournament and my table breaks as we re-group to play two tables. I've been going well by my recent standards (!)...225,000 chips in play..I have 20,000 plus.

The table I am placed on contains most of the chips. I have two stacks of 30,000 plus either side of me.

The blinds are going up every twenty minutes, and are in the region of 800-1600 as we re-start

And then the cards go completely cold...I try a steal and BB re-reraises. I get to see a flop with nothing in the BB and come nowhere near the board, stacking to a lead out bet.

Two small stacks double up on AA and KK.

Soon I'm getting blinded away but we are down to 13 players. Opportunities are difficult to find. People are folding or going all-in. My calling hands are being made redundant. Without doing a thing I am in the last ten. Second shortest stack. Then the short stack steals twice, cards unseen. I'm short stack. 10,000 chips...blinds are 1500-3000

I do not want to miss out, but have no cards and no possibilities of seeing any cheap flops

Your advice?
 

Good luck tony.......here's to a double up at some point!

back to the original topic (tikay doesn't need any more gratuitous praise....)

I was a semi-successful online player in my spare time for a couple of years, but got a bit bored with it.Wanted to look at people more, work at the pyschology of it all

Started going down to my local, Luton, in mid 04 and playing the small rebuy tournies and then occasional freezes.Bankroll not a huge problem but have a game that doesn't really suit rebuys.I could throw  at it, but would rather not.

At first I played my normal tight game and was delighted to hit four final tables in my first six visits including one in a 250 freezeout. However by playing a bit ABC and respecting/believing most people I only got to the finals relatively short stacked.

After a few months I decided to become more ambitious, introduce some different styles of play, some gear changes, some moves etc with the express aim of hitting a final table big stacked and to win some  

Since then I have hit one final table in the past four months, albeit I did win a satellite to enter the recent Luton 1000. But that was by reverting to "type".

My problem is one of timing and instinct....when are people at it or not etc etc

I have a maths degree so that side of it is worked out. What I want to know is: What can I do to improve the timing of my moves...or will it just take practice and experience...?

I want to venture further and play some festivals etc, but think I will wait til my game is a bit more developed. Then a gain, I probably won't!


By the way over the last nine months I have played alongside many "faces" and it has been such a thrill, even getting elblondie to lay down post flop when I re-raised on a stone cold bluff....a very minor occurrence but chalked on my headboard!!!

   

Try Pacific Poker.......resembles a great big Aquarium full of Koi carp...

Tip: If your lifestyle enables it, play at 3-5am UK time. Pacific is very US (linked to a casino operation I think) and anytime from 9PM to the early hours on the East Coast of the US the play loosens up considerably and you'll get called to the river by anything

So far this calendar year I'm $4000 up on a bankroll of $500 playing STT $30+3,$50+5 etc and have not got within a sniff of a final table playing bricks and mortar in the UK. Only an average player learning fast.

I don't dare go back to my other accounts at places like Wm Hill and UB, but will when some of you turn up on Pacific!!!!

just to show how little I know, I would have called quickly!

P.s If I ever play against ChunkyMick, I think I know what to expect...or is it a reverse tell?!??!

Here's what happened:

At the risk of upsetting the previous poster, I was in mathematical mode because I did not have a read on my foe, or any instinct to put him on a hand.

Was he flat calling with A and a rag, or A 10, A J or anything? I had no idea!

Anyway I decided I had to put him on at least an Ace. He was ahead of me after the turn. Whether he had two pair or not didn't really matter. I needed the drawing odds

I worked out that my outs (holding 10s on a board of As,Kd,Js,9h) were

2 Kings
9 spades
4 Queens
(possibly 3 10's too!)

15/18 outs out of 44 available cards or 3:1/2.75:1, not allowing for the fact that one of those outs might help foe

I was being asked to put 3000 into a 5100 pot or less than 2:1 return on the extra bet

I folded. Basically by not raising on the flop, which was an automatic call for him, I had not created enough pot odds.

Perhaps this is why I routinely fail to accumulate enough chips to play a part in the business end of final tables.

He showed.....




My read wasn't that bad, BUT if I had held that I would have checked the flop, so don't think I could have blamed myself for putting him on A x not two pair.

I'll never know whether I should have gambled, but for about 48 hours afterwards (having departed the comp at about 4am having been struggling with a low stack for about 3 hours) I wondered what might have been...this is also probably a weakness of mine!!!

Thanks for the responses and interest.

TE

Didn't say you were wonderful!

Steady on.......

"individualist/idiosyncratic reports".....what you tryng to say tight end?

worth reading and a unique style 

Tikay,

Have you given any thought to establishing a new section on the forum asking for comments and advice on sample hands?

This works very well on furms such as cardplayer and 2+2.

I'm not particularly interested in "here's another bad beat I got" type of stuff but I enjoy seeing how different people apprach the same hand

As an example, what are people's views on the following, which was dealt to me in one of the Luton festival events


Early stages, blinds 100-200...I have 5500 Chips Having started at 5000

Dealt 10s in the cut off

One early position limper (c7000 chips, never played him before, no read as such). I call, both blinds complete/check. 700 in pot

Flop As

Check, check, Limper raises and bets 700.

OK flush draw, royal flush draw, second pair, straight possibilities, outs galore.

I call (Yes, I should have re-raised to see where I was Aces-wise)

2100 in pot

Turn

No joy yet

Limper bets 3000

What do you do?

If I get enough responses I'll tell what happened!

For what it is worth, I'd put the tournament/trip reports into a blog and link to it via your front page. This would leave the main site with all the other stuff (articles/profiles/poker on tv etc) and the forum

It's probably the individualistic/idiosyncratic reports that people have in mind when sent here...