Pocket Tens

So, it's obviouly been a while since I posted my ramblings, but I'll try to do better in the future...

With that said, I'll talk about a couple of pocket-ten hands that I played in the past few months...

Pocket tens are (IMHO) the second most-difficult hand to play (after JJ). They look much better than they play (at least at a full table) and rarely live up the initial excitement they give you when you look down and see them. Anyway...

1) Chumash, $60 NL game w/ $1/$2 blinds - I'm in the BB (and the big stack at the table) and a tightish player limps under the gun and very loose player raises to $7 from middle position (which was fairly common for him to do with any 2 cards). Everyone else folds and I look down at pocket 10's, and raise to $20. Both other players call putting ~$60 in the pot.
The flop is a semi-friendly/semi-scary 9JQ rainbow giving me 4 cards to the straight - since I'm first to act and I'd rather try to take/steal it here with this iffy board, I bet the pot & put out $60 (after seeing that this $60 is more than half of their remaining chip-stacks). The tightish player folds and loose player starts talking to himself, "...you got AQ? you got an overpair?..." All good questions - especially since I was playing fairly tight.
He's got ~$110 and pushes all-in - since I'm getting more than 4:1 to call, I do with my straight draw. He flips over KQo and I hold off on turning over...
The turn is a 3, but the river is a lovely Kd. He starts pumping his fist for his 2-pair until I flip over the TT for the straight - and pull in ~$280. Hooray for drawing hands (when they hit)

Question: how much do you tip the dealer? I tend to tip ~$1 for every $50 I win. Small pots or split pots usually net the dealer a buck from me, while for pots like this, I'll give them 5 or 6 bucks... Is this typical?

This next hand made me sick to my stomach for days afterward...

2) Chumash, $60 NL game w/ $1/$2 blinds - I was a bit up after blowing my initial buy-in and rebuying for another $60 after being way up and then down for a long period of time (I had maybe $150 in front of me and was thinking about leaving and grabbing lunch). I had made a semi-conscious decision that I was not going to put my hard-earned, re-won stack at risk and would just play small-pot poker. (MISTAKE #1)
...So I'm in middle-late position, look down to see pocket TT, and pop it to $10 after 2 limpers came in. A loose-ish player (on a huge roll) called from the BB and only the other 2 limpers called - the BB player said, as he looked at his cards, "I've got to play this, it's my favorite hand."
After a flop of 3d, 3c, 9c, it was checked to me - and I bet out $15 after seeing that the limper to my right had $15 left in his stack. Everyone called and it put the limper all-in. I was worried that someone could be slowplaying a 3 (not too likely) and that someone was on a flush-draw.
The turn is the Jh, and it's checked around. The river is the 7s and it's checked to me - I bet $15 again (MISTAKE #2), and the BB player pushes all-in. The other player folds and I just sit back in my chair and start the replay...
Favorite hand... slowplaying a 3? 3 in a favorite hand? Not likely. T8 for a runner-runner straight? Not likely. AJ? Pocket 7's? The only hands I could reasonably put him on were a big suited-J in clubs (like AJc) or pocket 9's, or a bluff...
Also, I had seen him flop a boat earlier and he played it nearly the same way (calling, checking, all-in at the end) but he avoided eye-contact during the other players thought process - he was staring at me pretty hard here.
Based on all this, I was ~80-90% sure I had him beat - but I folded because of 2 reasons - I didn't want to put all my chips at risk & go home broke (MISTAKE #1) and because I didn't properly calculate the pot odds (MISTAKE #3). There was ~$130 in the pot but I only thought it was $95 (they hadn't pulled in the last bet [$15 from each of us]), so the pot seemed lighter than it really was and my stack looked bigger than it really was.
BTW, he flipped over T9s, for a pair of 9's, to win the main pot against the all-in player.
In any event - my mistakes are what kept my guts churning over and over every time I thought about this hand. I knew I had him, but my cowardice lost me a nice pot.

So, pocket tens - I still don't like playing them. I tend to play them (and JJ) rather soft - unless I think I can steal a pot with them preflop, I tend to play them more like pocket 7's.

Anyway - happy pokering!