The Iconic 10s

When I was growing up, long before the days of squad numbers, the star player in a football team generally wore the number 10 on his jersey. A cursory flick through world cup history gets the feeling of nostalgia going…Pele, Maradona, Platini, Zico, Elkjaer, Francescoli, Futre, Hagi, Valderrama, Stojkovic…

I remember watching a 1990 second match between Holland and Germany in the San Siro, Milan. Respective captains Ruud Gullit and Lothar Matthaus stood side by side pre-match, exchanging pleasantries in their shared language Italian. The two number 10s and fulcrums of their teams standing side by side. As an aside, shortly afterwards Frank Rikjaard deposited a lump of phlegm on Rudi Voller’s mullet and it all kicked off.

The image in my head of the two captains side by side is, of course, linked to a hand I played last night, which has provoked some discussion. The hand was pocket tens of course, and I have been widely condemned for how I played the hand. It was the £50 tournament at Loose Cannon - 18 runners, 4k in starting chips and a 20 minute clock.

I had Henrik, an aggressive Scandie who I play with semi regularly directly to my left, which wasn’t a good start. His perception of me is also that I am aggressive and someone who is capable of making moves.

Anyhow, level 2, blinds 50-100, Henrik has 3500, I have 4500. Folded round to me on the button and I found TT, and raise it to 300. Henrik immediately makes it 1200 to go and the BB folds. It’s a horrible situation for our relative stack sizes because I can’t re-raise him without committing all my chips.

Hmmmmm - now I know Henrik will see my button raise as a steal and may re-raise with air here, but I decide to flat call for 900 extra and re-evaluate on the flop.

Flop is 3d 5c 7s

Henrik insta-shoves for 2300 into the pot of 2400 and I go into the tank. There are no credible draws, and I feel that Henrik would check raise me all in with AA/KK on this board. I pretty much put him on QQ/JJ/AK/AQ. Given I feel that my tournament is still fine with 30 big blinds I take the safe route and fold.

Most of the people I have discussed this hand with feel I should have either folded pre-flop, or shoved pre-flop. I don’t like either of these options. Folding pre-flop is simply too weak against an aggressive player like Henrik, and shoving for 45 big blinds pre-flop with TT is too reckless for me. I either get snap called and am screwed, or I am in some kind of race. Perhaps 20% of the time Henrik passes here to a shove.

I preferred the call option because, despite it being 25% of my stack, I had position, and would gather some extra information from Henrik when he acted first on the flop. No-one I have spoken to agrees on this, but I still think it was the right play. The stack sizes made the whole hand a nightmare though, so I’m not sure if there is a right answer here. I have a sneaking suspicion that Henrik had AK and felt committed after the re-raise so was shoving any flop, but we will never know.

Anyhow - I busted out of the tournament early on after getting short, and then played poorly in the cash game, losing £500 of my profit from earlier in the week. I played two hands very questionably, and this accounted for most of the losses. It really annoys me when I play terribly as opposed to just being unlucky.

Hopefully I will find time to play the International £100 on Saturday night.