NL 5 - Pocket 10's vs 3 Bet from Button

Before I analyze the hand a useful aside: many poker players (myself included) learn, in the beginning, to categorize a player as “loose” or “tight”, and I think your confusion with your opponent in this hand is a perfect example of how outdated this system is. I just watched a video by Jungleman wherein he recommends taking a more analytical approach to our categorizations of our opponents either thru using a hud or observing showdowns, or both. An example of this is “this player is over calling preflop, but over folds turns and rivers”. So he’s essentially a fish and a nit put together, hence the confusion when we use this dated terminology and the thought processes behind it. I’ve only recently added this concept to my own game, and it’s been quite useful. Now OTTH.

TT is going to be a mixed frequency 4-bet preflop, so you can raise it half the time and call half the time. That’s straight out of GTOW, so with no or limited reads on opponent you can play that strategy with TT. As far as the flop goes, I’d check. It appears that we both have a set of 8s, a set of 9s, and the QT straight in our ranges, but we have them at a lower frequency because when we hold (88, 99, QT) we will 4 bet them some amount of the time. Furthermore we never have a set of Js here because we always 4 bet them, and our opponent does have JJ. So opp has the nut advantage here. The check raise also fails to generate decent fold equity. The only pocket pairs he folds are the ones we have crushed, he has a lot of flushes with at least one over card, and even some of his over card with gutshot and back door FD hands could call (especially at this price, it was a small 4 bet) and look to pressurize you later in the hand if they don’t improve (which sort of happened). So when we get called here our equity is awful and we just need to fold. If we don’t check raise though, we could get a decent price to call, and our opponent maintains bluffs in his betting range which helps our equity. As played good fold, but I would just not check raise the flop here. I actually did something similar the other day and learned from my own mistake haha. GL

I like your play, for me you played the hand perfectly! We have the option to jam turn but it’s up to you. In other words, perhaps the "mistake" was that you hadn't decided on the flop whether to shove turn (or pot control) vs this guy

The 10.6BB 3bet is massive, I would 4bet or fold preflop. The bigger their 3bet, the less we call because we get a worse price (and we win more money when our 4bet goes through). Depending on the player I have no problem folding TT vs such a massive 3bet, for some of them strength of the hand = size...

Flop x/r feels a bit unnecessary, they won't fold a better hand than yours, TT with on heart makes a nice call on the flop.

Nooooo!!! Don't fold the hand pre!

Pocket tens doesn't feel like the most intuitive 4-bet, but as another commenter points out, GTO likes to do this at a mixed frequency

Which makes it a great hand to use as a soft exploit because we can call for implied odds against tighter players and 4-bet with decent fold equity against loose 3-betters.

As a side note: I think we need to be more descriptive than "fairly TAGish, maybe a little LAG". I don't think this helps us at all, it just assumes they can apply aggression.. Which is true of the majority of players, even at 5NL. Ie less "TAG" or "LAG" and just "AG"...

As their raise size is a bit on the larger side (as is your open), I'd probably default to calling in this scenario.

Preflop good as played!

However, on the flop I don't like the check-raise. We should absolutely be checking, but not raising. They're very set-heavy here, while their [QQ-AA] also dominates us (with b33 I think these hands are fair game). I suppose the raise is good against their top-pairs, but this is a smaller portion of range compared to what destroys us.

In terms of fold equity, I doubt A-high flushes will be folding, and even some of the K-high draws have good equity associated with them on this board [KTs+]. In fact, it's these hands that we'd like to be check-raising with.. Further - what if the straight completes for us, but it's a heart?

..not so much a cooler as us walking ourselves directly into the ice fridge!

In theory they have some straights here with [QT], but I don't know if many 5NL players are finding this and are instead pure calling it. Which is nice for us, but we're blocking that hand pretty heavily, so it's kinda moot?

The only hands we're beating are [66, 77]. Again, at 5NL I don't think they're finding this as a 3-bet preflop, so I'd argue discounting this from Villain's range. Nor are they likely to cbet, even if they did hold such a hand.

I think check-call is the right move; it's nice that Villain goes b33 (as they should be doing) and makes the call trivial for us, as we're definitely not folding, to evaluate turn. We need 20% equity, which I think we have if we can hit one of the straight completes, stack a lower set if we see a {Tx}, or move in front of some top-pair stuff.

Glad you folded. An argument could be made for shoving, but it's basically jumping on a grenade at this point and I think we get blown up more often than not.

Noble, but who wants to jump on a live grenade?

Thanks a LOT for the feedback, everyone, especially to Will and Ferret for supplying so much detail into the thought process and reasoning behind it all - I've read through those a handful of times now to really let it sink in. The XR was indeed a clear mistake and you've helped me better understand why/where to XR in general (and where NOT to) just through reviewing this scenario. Also, Ferret, the added personality and humor is much appreciated - very charming. Cheers, y'all and thanks again.