By lakong on March 4th, 2009 (more posts by author)

I ended up playing 4 NL tournaments -- two full table normal tournaments, one shootout and one short-handed. I didn't go very deep in any of them. I think I played fairly solid, but ran really bad. Two ended with big suckouts against me and two were tough situations that I'm not sure I could get away from. The good news is that I won two sats -- one for a $1k score and the other for a $2k score so I was a bit up in total. Here are a few hands that I would like some feedback on.

Hand 1: I'm a few hours into a $550 NL tournament. I find myself with 15 BB and am in the CO. David Phan is to my left with a huge stack and the SB/BB also have big stacks. It's folded to me. I have two red Tens. Do I push or raise? Not a huge decision but I'm curious what most of you would do because my decision proved fatal whereby another decision might have resulted in a different outcome.

Hand 2: Early in a $1k tournament. I'm UTG+1 with 4k and see JJ. UTG also has 4k. Blinds 50/100.

UTG mini-raises to 200. I just call for various reasons -- mostly to play a small pot and I'm suspicious of UTG mini-raises. One blind calls. Flop comes TJQ rainbow. Check to me. I bet $500, only UTG calls. Pot now $1700.

Turn 5 also brings back-door flush draw. UTG bets 600. Do I call, raise, push? If I don't push, what's the plan for the river?

Hand 3: $130 10-handed sat. Three players left, blinds are 400/800. We're in the BB with AJo and 6500 chips. The SB has 2k and the button has 6500. No mention of chop, but let's assume for argument sake that if we knock out the SB that we would likely do a chop with the button.

The button pushes and the SB folds. Do we call or fold?