T♥T♠ on the Flop, what do you do here?

Pocket Tens on the Flop-optmized.gif


DECISION POINT:
In a Tournament, the UTG player calls, and the MP2 and Hijack call behind. You are in the Cutoff seat and you raise with T♥T♠. The Button and Blinds fold, the UTG player, MP2, and Hijack call. The Flop comes 9♣8♣5♠. Your opponents all check. Action is on you, what do you do here

PRO ANSWER: After several limpers, we raised preflop with pocket tens for both value and to thin the field. We failed to thin the field, since we were called by three opponents. With a highly coordinated flop and multiple opponents, one pair hands such as top pair or even overpairs to the board lose much of their value in deep stacked situations.

In many multiway pots you should be prepared to get away from your one pair hands when you face significant reverse implied odds. Having reverse implied odds essentially means that your hand can win a small pot, but will often lose if the pot gets big.

Hands that rarely improve, such as a pocket pair, can suffer from reverse implied odds fairly easily in multiway pots on coordinated flops with deep stacks.

Continued below…

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However, in this hand the remaining effective stack is extremely shallow. We have less than a pot sized bet left in our stack. Despite having multiple opponents and a coordinated board, we are committed to this hand. We should move all-in both for value and to protect our hand.

When analyzing your play on the flop, always remember to pay attention to stack sizes. If stacks were deeper, we could have played this hand differently. Given these stacks, we must move all-in.

Moving all-in is the best play.

What would you do here?
Share your answer in the comments below!



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