Top pair in a blind vs blind confrontation deep in the Sunday Million

exactly. my vote, the staff and “squirtyb” all had it right… of course when you shove and he turns over 910 or JJ, then we look like idiots.

poker is the worst game ever.

What is really interesting and educational about this daily hand quiz is what you can learn by the voting results.

Usually when there is a big favorite like there is today it is the wrong answer. What I find fascinating is that this is the way it needs to be in order for pros to make a living playing this game. Most people need to be making the wrong decisions otherwise there is no beating the rake.

I completely agree with the staff today. Excellent quiz. Nice example of baiting your opponent.

And by the voting results we can see there is still plenty of opportunity to make an income playing online poker.

I don’t disagree with staff or comments today, but it wasn’t my vote.

In either case, I really don’t think it is going to make a difference. There are very few flops that we would have liked more and we’ve got to be willing to go with a hand like this, especially against an aggressive opponent.

While the weak lead gives us the opportunity to be the one to shove instead of calling a shove, I think it’s still going to be a good play.

A strong lead will probably feel weaker than a small lead. A strong lead would help us determine a lot easier where we stood in the hand and we would still have plenty left behind to fold. That’s all that an aggressive player needs to just shove on you and put you to a decision for the rest of your stack. If we had a hand like AJ/AQ/AK or 66/77/88 we would have a real tough time calling off our stack here.

I actually think that Mizzi’s play is pretty bad here. Our play actually gave him a chance to get away from the hand. We raised before the flop, led the flop, and shoved on his re-raise. We are obviously not afraid of top pair so he has to figure that he’s sitting on 5 outs or a backdoor straight.

To me, a weak play here earns us a nice pot a lot of the time by enticing our aggressive opponent to raise, but still letting him fold to our shove. We want him to hang himself. Let him shove on us after a strong lead.

The fact that Mizzi called our shove means that it really didn’t matter in the end how we played this–strong lead or weak lead. The chips were all going in the middle. The play I like the least here is a check since any aggression after our check is going to say that we flopped big and should let our villain off easy from any hand that we’re beating.

You have the top pair with the best kicker

You need win more chips to entry on more money! You don`t can be weak here

Lead strong is the best, and try to take down the pot

I voted a small raise rather than check-raise for one simple reason, pot sizing. Against an aggressive player you are likely going to be faced with a raise in this spot. So, do you want a raise from a check on the flop - which I would then check raise - or a re-raise from a weakish lead. A re-raise of your weak lead is simply going to get more money in the middle, and at this point of the tournament, I’m willing to risk it with Top Top on a flop like this.

Notice in either case, check-raise or weaklead-raise, you are likely not getting past the flop unless the BB hit a sick hand on you. So, I want to get more in the middle right now.

Oh, and a big bet is likely to win the hand outright…making that a bad play. You don’t give your aggressive player a chance to make a mistake and try to knock you off your hand.

Perhaps I’m a little timid, but I’m feeling good here if I lead strong and take down a 400k pot. The staff’s analysis makes sense, but you would hate to get flat called and see a J,Q,K,A hit. My 1st preference would be to take it down now, however if it get’s to a shove at least I have my money in with what should be the best hand. A side note to OPI, could you possibly sound more condecending? Why don’t you get your own public access cable show to tell people how much better you are at this game..

You’ll notice that the other regular contributors (Ally, James B, etc) can disagree without insinuating that other people are idiots. Phew.. feel much better now.

I agree with Troy on both points. Lead strong, and OPI is a condescending douchebag. OK fine, maybe I threw that last part in by myself.

If you lead weak and he flat calls, half the deck scares you, and youre out of position. Now what do you do if an 8, heart, or broadway card hit, or just about any card besides an ace or 10. You lead and he raises….I bet youre kicking yourself for that weak lead that let him call cheaply and either catch up, or put pressure on you, holding what appears now to be the second best hand.

IMO, Mizzi just played this hand badly. Blind aggression against us when we played this in the most obvious “I have you beat” kind of way is not what Id expect from a top pro. A flat call makes you sweat any turn but an A or 10, and he could get a much better read, and/or sell turning a better hand with a flat call on the turn. The post flop raise was questionable, understandable if he wanted to find out where he stands…but calling our all-in just seems plain bad. He must have stepped away and let his 8 year old son play for him for a minute.

a comment to Troy’s post - if an Ace hit that would make you two pair so you are not afraid if an ace hits… this leaves a JQK that could possibly scare you away… but yea I totally agree with you that you should lead strong here… your hand isnt huge and you should make him pay if youre behind…
The problem I see here is that those who say leading small is the best answer are assuming that the opponent will see the bet as weak and reraise - many players don’t reraise the small bet but call hoping to suck out on you and many times they do - i say bet big here with the pair of tens, its not a monster and youre not afraid to get your money in good here, making your opponent pay if hes going to suck out