Deepish stack tournament hand

[pswnio]

130 runners left. Average stack around 11000. Blinds at 200/400.

Button - 27000 chips, second biggest stack on table. LAG. Will seemingly play any 2 pre flop and will certainly open up from the button with pretty much any two. Fairly solid post flop; aggressive but not maniacal.

Small Blind (you) - 35000 chips, table leader. You've been quite busy pre flop and your raises have been given respect. Post flop you've got a solid-ish image. You've only lost one showdown, you've won with and shown two pair where you checked top pair decent kicker on the flop, raised a bet on the turn and flat called the river bet. Most of your other pots have been won with raises that haven't been shown down. Recently you naughtily re-raised on the turn with two overs after the BB had check raised; you won the pot with AQ vs AJ on a ten high board. This was shown. You've shown you're not passive and you've mixed it up post flop a lot.

Big blind. About 10000 chips. Been pretty tight, doesn't call many raises without a very decent starting hand even if priced in.

Button opens up for 1200.
You have  in the small blind.

Question 1 - Fold, call or raise?

You call and the BB folds.

Flop comes 

Question 2 - Do you check this flop and, if so, do you do so with the intention of raising or calling a bet should it come? Or do you lead out and, if so, how much? (Pot stands at 2800).

You fire out 3000. This is the first time you've overbet the pot. To your immense displeasure, the button raises you to 9000. You haven't seen him raise previously with a flush or straight draw. You think he's called a pot sized ish bet with a flush draw on the flop previously but can't be sure. Your initial feel for the situtation is that he thinks you've taken a stab at the pot with nothing and has decided to try and move you off it. You feel he's capable of doing this, even against the chip leader. However, this is more an instinct than an actual read and you obviously have no concrete evidence whatsoever.

Question 3 - Do you shake your head woefully and fold your top pair, figuring there'll be better spots? Do you call the raise and re-evaluate on the turn? Or can you possibly re-raise him here?

[Horneris]

Button opens up for 1200.
You have  in the small blind.

Question 1 - Fold, call or raise?

I fold here. This is wasting chips IMO. With a mediocre holding such as this one i much prefer to be the one raising in position to steal the blinds (and antes?), not playing a hand such as this one OOP. Could get you into trouble. I mean, theyre not even suited.

Question 2 - Do you check this flop and, if so, do you do so with the intention of raising or calling a bet should it come? Or do you lead out and, if so, how much? (Pot stands at 2800).

I lead out here. Usually i like to check raise in positions like this but the big problem with this approach here though is that if you check and he raises a decent amount (which he probs would), then you check raise, if he 3 bets all in, we are now snookered.

If we lead out, we can take the pot down there or then if he folds, re evaluate on the next street if he flat calls (unlikely IMO) or make a decision if he re raises.

Question 3 - Do you shake your head woefully and fold your top pair, figuring there'll be better spots? Do you call the raise and re-evaluate on the turn? Or can you possibly re-raise him here?

Decision time, I think you have to shake your head and give up here this time. He could even have Q 10, K 10 & A 10, and obv he could have an overpair. And if he does have a FD youre hardly far ahead anyway. Its a fold, unless you have a strong read on him. This is probs why we shouldnt have played J 10os in the first place (not being results orientated here).

Good Questions/Post.

[doubleup]

Agree 100% about JTo call.  Half the difficult decisions posted on this board start with calling or limping OOP with mediocre hands.

[MANTIS01]

Agree with the two guys here...wouldn't call with 10-J pre-flop in a month of Sundays. This may not be the answer you're looking for pswnio but every hand is a series of connected plays and the current predicament you find yourself in can be traced back to this initial mistake so take a note from doubleup's post. I see so many players get themselves into a position of strength and then enter many an unfavourable situation for no apparent reason before giving away their hard-earned chips.

In this example you choose to flat-call a raise oop with a weak drawing hand against an opponent with a serious chunk of chips when you really don't have to. There is absolutely no pressure on you to play so why play? And more importantly why play when things are so unfavourable for you? You identify the raiser as a LAG so your plan is to trap this guy with strength no? Playing this hand the way you have with a big pp or a set is perfect for this situation...but you are a long way away from that kind of strength here. Hitting one pair on the flop is only going to drag you futher into the mire and this is what has happened. You have taken a stab and got your answer as far as I'm concerned so I think retreating from the hand and evaluating how to use your chips in a better fashion next time is the best you can do now....the post from Horneris is spot on.

[pswnio]

Thanks for the response, guys. Told me pretty much what I expected to hear and in a fantastically logical and well explained fashion.

The initial call was pretty needless. I'm wildly inexperienced live, and experience with hands like this is all good learning. I was very pleased to have built up a decent chipstack early (this was the APAT event), and that's one positive I can take away.

I did have a rationale for playing it though. Even though I was table chip leader, I felt very much like the SB was table captain. We hadn't really tangled yet, had hardly been in a pot together, and certainly not heads up. Blinds were at 200/400 but were due up fairly shortly, and after the next break players were going to start dropping like flies. I wanted to (cheaply, only 1000 chips) let him know that things weren't all going to go his way, that even though the table was generally tight he had me to his left, his raises weren't going to get through unopposed and I wasn't going to let him dominate the table. That's quite a lot of things to try and get across with one call from the SB I suppose

The plan was to bet the flop pretty much regardless of texture and pass to any raise. I wasn't too worried about table image if I had to fold after betting, because it set the table up to raise me on my pseudo continuation when I next hit the flop, and if I took the pot here and now, he might not have been so indiscriminate with his raising in future.

I can see very well why your main point has been "why get involved OOP with a drawing hand?" Despite all my attempt at justification above it was a silly thing to do.

Of course, the real problem arose when I hit top pair average kicker. I decided after going into the tank that his raise was a bluff. There were a couple of very decent pointers that way. However, in the cold light of day, I realise that there were a couple of things that should also have been screaming warning at me. I went with my hunch, which was that he had nothing, and re-raised. He pushed, I then knew I was beat but made the crying call (had to), and - well, you don't want to know what happened next, do you?

I put too much emphasis on table image here, I was obsessed by it, and not enough emphasis on (a) betting patterns or (b) the absolute needlessness of getting involved at this point. It's all good learning!

[Rapidseven]

Thanks for the response, guys. Told me pretty much what I expected to hear and in a fantastically logical and well explained fashion.

The initial call was pretty needless. I'm wildly inexperienced live, and experience with hands like this is all good learning. I was very pleased to have built up a decent chipstack early (this was the APAT event), and that's one positive I can take away.

To be fair, the guy might have realised that and could have been waiting to get you in a hand.

[pswnio]

Ah, well. I don't think that showed TOO much

[MANTIS01]

Good post pswnio...it shows you were weighing up a number of factors outside of the cards you held and this is encouraging for success in future tournaments.

Your strategy needs a bit of tweeking and this obviously comes from more experience. I would like to quickly pick up on this point if I may....

I did have a rationale for playing it though. Even though I was table chip leader, I felt very much like the SB was table captain. We hadn't really tangled yet, had hardly been in a pot together, and certainly not heads up. Blinds were at 200/400 but were due up fairly shortly, and after the next break players were going to start dropping like flies. I wanted to (cheaply, only 1000 chips) let him know that things weren't all going to go his way, that even though the table was generally tight he had me to his left, his raises weren't going to get through unopposed and I wasn't going to let him dominate the table

1. This is a fair enough mindset but the execution is a bit off the money. To flat-call with a weakish holding oop doesn't really show him any of these things. All it is does is get YOU into a mess. If you wanted to demonstrate that his raises aren't going to roll you over then use that extra 3k you bet on the flop to re-raise him pre-flop and put the pressure back on him. Why let him have the luxury of seeing the flop with position on you when you have him out-chipped? But still there is no urgency to go down that road...let him feel like the table captain for a while and be cool with that...then use his looseness to punish him later on.

Poker is about who has the most chips....there is no prize for who feels like the captain at the moment.

2. You rightly identify that after the break other players will be dropping like flies. So this is the avenue to go down to swell the size of your stack...bust the shorties who can't hurt you...don't take on a big stack just to prove a point. You know what this guy is all about and you have ample time to execute your plan...just be patient and wait for the conditions to be right before finally proving to him who the captain really is.

[Tragic]

130 runners left. Average stack around 11000. Blinds at 200/400.

Button - 27000 chips, second biggest stack on table. LAG. Will seemingly play any 2 pre flop and will certainly open up from the button with pretty much any two.

I take it we are ignoring this then? You have to check raise the flop imo. The button if he is any good will realize you are expecting a c-bet, so betting out can look kinda weak, and I think the c/r has a higher % chance of success. Of course normally it's a fold, but it's really not a hopeless call vs a button raise and even reraising from the SB looks very strong if he is getting out of line. I'm not advocating this stuff as the correct play generally but you can't just rule them out automatically everytime. Having had this little rant it's maybe a bit early yet to be pulling that crap.

[MANTIS01]

The thing is that a LAG's general strategy is to press with atc...and then the other players never believe him....so when he picks up a hand he gets paid. Standing up to a LAG with weakness is not the way to go imo, especially when time is on your side. The plan should be to trap him with strength and then WE get paid.

pswino stands up to the LAG with weakness...because he doesn't believe...and the LAG gets paid...cos he has a hand. I think it's best to avoid the LAG until we are firmly in control of the situation. Let's trap him...not fall into his trap. There are easier chips to be made at this table than taking on the LAG with J-10 oop.