WSOP Main 2012 - Pocket 10's facing short stack shove, first hand of Day 3

This hand is from the WSOP Main Event in 2012. I sit down Day 3 with about 131k chips, which is 2nd biggest at the table. Min cash bubble will hit during Day 4, not this day.

We are getting ready to 'shuffle up and deal' to kick off Day 3, one open seat at the table, one player hasn't sat down yet - we are about to shuffle and play within 30 seconds. Just as the first card goes off the deck, an older, hispanic-looking gentlemen wearing what looked like biker clothes comes hustling over and sits down just in time to play his first hand. He is the short stack at the table (35k). This is the start of Level 11 (800/1600/200).

Hero is on BB. Action folds around to the guy who just sat down, he looks at his cards and shoves. Action folds around to Hero, who looks down at pocket 10 10. I have no read on the villain, short of about 60 seconds worth of visual cues.

What should hero do?

 

For whatever it's worth, here are notes I took about table lineup / starting stacks for Day 3. I took the names out but labelled Hero and Villain.

 

In my view this is an easy call. Villain's range for shoving is pretty wide here given his short stack and the fact it's been folded around to him with only 3 players left to act. It wouldn't be that far fetched for this to be a pure steal attempt. All things considered I think your ahead pre-flop most of the time (probably as much as 75% or more). There are only 4 hands that dominate you and every other hand has you ahead or in a coin flip. He's probably shoving with Ax, Kx suited etc. so there's lots of hands where you dominate him. Finally, I think he limps or min raises frequently if he has a monster in hopes of trapping someone. Put it all together and I think it's fairly high +EV for you to call.

 

On the fence with this one. How did hero feel up to this point? Lucked into some chips and looking to move further ahead, or has played real solid TAG and is picking the best spots? I see the benefits of calling, but would think there would be a better spot for the risk/reward. AQ off versus your tens is likely under 60% in your favor, so you're ahead, but not by much. Villian has just a smidge over 20 BBs left, so they're looking to make a move, but it doesn't seem like an auto-shove to me. Two possible callers before you in the BB, so maybe he caught a hand and is trying to make it seem like a simple steal? This is a trickier one!

 

I'd beat him into the pot.

 

Day 1 and Day 2 were roller coasters... I finished Day 1 in 18th place overall in the entire field, Day 2 finished a little under where I started that day, but I had been playing pretty solid and had good reads on my opponents both days. This was the very first hand on Day 3... new table draw = new table/seat/opponents each day. So no one had any read on me, and vice versa.

 

He's shoving with a big ace, or less likely a pair like 7's. He's just looking to race for a quick double up.

 

pump fist insta call

 

I gave it more thought than those saying it is an insta-call. In such a long tournament, just looking for flips with short stacks is often a good way to dig yourself into an unneeded hole. Especially if you aim wrong and don't even get your flip.

So why he is shoving?

A late position bluff? He has 22BB and is miles from the bubble. One more rotation in blinds won't save him. And he could potentially steal blinds with a smaller bet, and still not be in critical shape. Nope, he has to have some showdown value.
Aces or Kings trying to look like a bluff and be called by someone looking to race? Again not likely. They can see most flops and still shove, and desperately want the full amount.

So that leaves hands strong enough to have a good likelihood of winning, but which will not like the look of many flops. So AK, AQ, maybe AJ, KQ suited, maybe Queens, jacks, tens, nines, eights. Could be a lower pocket but its getting unlikely.

So the hands you crush and the ones that crush you are more or less a wash, and what you are left with is a lot of races against 2 high cards. Now, those races favour you, and you are calling 33400 to win 39200. And if you lose, you will still have about 60ish big blinds left.

Based on that, yeah, I probably call. The only way you can lay it down is if you read the quick action as him overreacting to a big hand and thinking "this is my double up" without looking at the scenario first, or if you're so confident of your skills that you think you can reliably get your money in better.


But its not a 'fist pump' call. Because probably 45+% of the time, you are dropping 1/4 of your stack.

 

Pocket 10's are overrated in my view to automatically inst call on shoves especially in this situation ..long way to go and unless you put V on a smaller PP it's a FOLD

 

I gave it plenty of thought, and came to the conclusion that I would beat him into the pot

 

I've played plenty of tournament poker, and I know that you have to win plenty of flips to go deep in the main event.

I would weight his range heavily to mid pocket pairs that he is scared of seeing an overcard on the flop, and a range of broadways.

People tend to panic, and I would say europeans/latin americans more so than most.

Yes, this is all very wishy/washy, but we haven't much to go on, given that it's the first hand of the day.

 

If he only shoves pairs/ATo+/QTs+ you're 58%.

Given how many people I've seen go bananas with other random hands, and the fact there is no real risk to my stack. I'm even happier to call than I was instinctively.

 

picking back up....

Hero snap-calls. Before hero flips cards over, others at the table make comments like "you must have Aces to call that fast"... heh

Hero tables 10 10, Villain tables AJ offsuit.

Board plays out 643J9, and Villain doubles up.

Hero goes on to lose every hand he plays for the next 6 hours that day and go busto on Day 3.

 

'You must have Aces' made me chuckle

Got to win plenty of those to go deep in any big field MTT.

Had plenty of days like your day 3 myself, and no doubt will again.

Hopefully neither of us will have many this summer, though

 

Dang. First hand. Wow.
Without a read or history, I would fold. Probably. (Can I be more equivocal?)

Do you want to play a virtual coin flip at this stage with your stack size on the first hand? I wouldn't. If I lost the first hand, I would be second guessing myself for the rest of the day/tournament. If I had his stack size and was in his position, I would have shoved pocket 10s or better being the first to act. His immediate shove would worry me. For what it's worth, I would think I was beat.

I'm guessing that you called, so I am interested to learn what he had.

Thanks for these posts on this board.

 

Interesting side note... I removed the names but one of the guys I was with at this table on Day 3 was kind of memorable (visually) to me. Thick french accent (seat 9), big hoodie and sunglasses, and he had 2 watches on each arm. I found another pic of him online wearing several watches, so you can see what I got to stare at for half the day

 

^^^ This is actually the guy who ultimately knocked me out, QQ against his AK (he rivered the K). I remember he said to me as I was getting up to leave, in the thick accent and with a really snobby tone "I hope you spend the next year thinking about all the mistakes you made today." LOL cool.

 

If you would have known he had AJ, would you have made the call? You seem to be implying that you would turn down a +EV situation to reduce volatility.

 

If I knew he had AJ, I would have called. I was only worried about a few premium hands that beat me. Thus my snap call. I kind of figured it was a race, but he was short stack and even if I lost I still had a good stack for the table (my thought process 5 years ago).