12 replies to this topic

[packattack]

What do you guys think is the best play here?To give you a little bit of information...it is in the early stages of a NLHE tournament. A player in early position who plays a pretty straightforward game brings it in for a standard size 3x the BB raise. It folds around to you in the BB with KTs. You hold about 1700 chips and your opponent around 1500 with the blinds 15/30. What do you do?If you could give your opinion on why you selected what you did I would appreciate it.

[gobears]

I would call it; 135 in the pot, 60 to call so I'm getting better than 2-1.3xBB raise from EP means his hand is probably better than yours if he plays by the book.I'm out of position however but I'll see a flop at that price early in the tournament.

[packattack]

Thanks for the responses, fellas. I ended up calling the raise and the flop came JTT with two clubs (I had spades). I check-raised my opponent and he moved all-in with QQ. My hand held up and I doubled up.This hand brought some controversy but I'm still confident I made the right play. If my opponent has a hand like QQ or JJ, I am mathematically correct to call here, and then of course you add in some implied odds and semi-bluffing possibilities, along with defending your blind and I think the call is justified.

[MasterLJ]

I really dislike hands like K10s. There are two situations in which one hand dominates another pre-flop:1. When you share a card with lesser kicker. AJ to A10 makes for a 75% to 25% situation (roughly).2. You are up against pocket pair with 1 or less over cards (your situation). 2 overs results in the well-known coin-flip. One over is about 75/25 and no overs is something like 85/15 at best.If you start thinking about what a tight player raises with the idea of AK has to come to mind, either that or pocket pair. This means you are well behind in all scenarios. The odds could be there to call, but it's imperitive to identify the situations you need to be careful of. What if a King fell? You wouldn't be confident of your kicker unless you were absolutely positive your opponent held QQ or lesser pocket pair. If you have an uncoordinated rainbow flop with 10 high, then you are golden. You got extremely lucky (1/22 that you flop trips, but again only flopping trips with the 10 would make you feel comfortable) and you got the ideal flop, anything else you have lost control of the hand and can't feel confident unless of course you flop two pair, a nice straight/flush draw etc.

[rjb09]

This was a pretty easy fold for me. Many people do not fully respect an early position raise, especially since it was a pretty decent player. Just because this hand turned out alright for you, KTs is not that great of a hand and most likely you are way behind. I know it wasn't much more to see the flop, but what happens if you get a piece of the flop, even if a K comes out. He could have KQ, AK, or even KJ (less likely). So most times this is a pretty easy fold for me as I would like to pick a better spot to play. You are also out of position.

[Abbaddabba]

It's a marginal situation. You could hardly criticize someone for calling or folding. The lower the buy-in, the more tempting it is to call, obviously.

[MasterLJ]

packattack said:

What do you guys think is the best play here?To give you a little bit of information...it is in the early stages of a NLHE tournament. A player in early position who plays a pretty straightforward game brings it in for a standard size 3x the BB raise. It folds around to you in the BB with KTs. You hold about 1700 chips and your opponent around 1500 with the blinds 15/30. What do you do?If you could give your opinion on why you selected what you did I would appreciate it.

The call is optional really. I hate K10 personally because it's dominated. There are 2 situations in hold'em where a hand is completely dominated pre-flop:1. The obvious, pocket pair to higher pocket pair yields 80/20 at best2. When you both share a card, but the opponent has a higher 2nd card as in AK vs KQ, that's about 25/75 in favor of the obvious.If I recall AK vs 78 is like 65/35.To bring it back around, you have to think about what sort of hands people raise with. AK, AQ for sure, any pocket pair over 10, guaranteed. Some people at lower limits push with KJ, KQ, QJ, A10. All of those hands have you pretty well dominated.I like to call with K10 against one other player when I'm getting at least 3-to-1 on my money as far as pot odds, but I recognize what kind of hands I'm looking to make with K10. You are looking for the straight or two-pair or higher. Anything else will get you into trouble. If that King lands to an otherwise blank flop you may want to throw a strong bet out there. If you get called it's tricky, you don't know if you're getting called due to a higher kicker or to a draw, the flop will usually tell. After the initial call or raise you want to check or fold because you are probably beat to anything but a bluff.

[greatwhite]

KT could easily be beat by aa, kk, kq, aq, aq, aj, qq, jj, and tt. With solid player in early stages you are no better than a coin flip. Even then you would be a slight underdog. I don't think you have above a 50% chance of winning this hand whether your opponent has a pair or not (unless the pair is between 2's and 5's). Plus you don't want to get so involved early. The early stages is where patience is key.

[greatwhite]

You shouldn't call, because if you flop a king you are still probablly dominated and can lose alot of money. I don't think you should play a hand here and still be afraid of making kt. Mathematically yes, but it's still not a good call.

[Catamo]

Whos saying Fold?This is a must call situation. Although you are more then likely beat in the hand, Your still more then likely getting the right pot odds to call. I think only very weak players would fold in this situation.

[NarSARSsist]

I'm one of those weak players in question, lol. Probably, my biggest reason for choosing a fold here over a call (and it is a fairly close situation in my mind) is the fact that he has position over me. It would be great for a flop like J T T to connect like that, but most of the time it doesn't come that way. If a flop comes, say, J 8 3, I'm in no-man's land and I wouldn't know what to do (okay, you guys are better, so you guys probably would :-) ). In this scenario, he might just have high cards, in which case a bet could potentially scare him off. However, he could just as likely have a big pair (such as in this very story), where all I'd accomplish is bluffing off some of my chips. Plus, if he has K Q, he could potential nail you with a hard one to swallow too :shock: .The alternative way I'd look at this is whether I'd be willing to take some risks to accumulate a bigger stack. If the flop comes, say, 9 4 2 with two spades, he'll probably like his overpair, and I'd probably like having a flush draw with two overcards. Then the question becomes: do I want to risk my chips to hit a flush and bust this guy? I'll admit, I'm a sissy , and I really wouldn't want to go for it early in a tourney, when the blinds are so low that I can wait for a better spot. Plus, let's say that the flop comes, I dunno, Q 2 4 spades, I flop the King high flush, and I'd probably not overplay it to scare him off, and let's say he has A Q with the Ace being a spade (not likely, I know, just illustrating some worse case scenarios, or rather almost worse case scenarios. Well he's got top pair and the nut flush draw. There's always a possibility that this story might then go to the bad beats story with a tear, lol.