What Would You DO

I call myself MASTAOFJACKS only cause i won a $2,500 home game pot with Pocket Jacks so when i got home i got online to play and made my username. I have asked several people this question now I ask you how would you play Pocket Jacks. I always feel like I need to go all in everytime I get them. Im not sure there really is a proper way to play them what do you think.

well this like all what would you do questions,depends on alot of things.
1-your position.
2-your chip stack.
3-opponents in the pot.
4-the people in the pot and there playing styles(i.e. tight,loose,maniac,etc,etc,.)
personally i dont like to risk my whole stack preflop with any pair,i know sometimes it is nessisary,but i loike to play it safe alot,especially with jj.

lol.

You master of something. Not sure it is jacks though...

I agree!

If I am short stacked, I would probably go all in with this hand just about anytime. However, it really depends any other time. I mean if I am in early position and playing on a really tight table I am always careful with any pocket pair except for possibly Aces and Kings.

There really are so many things to consider in so many different aspects of the game to base your strategy on that I rarely find myself playing hands the exact same way, even pocket Aces and Kings, let alone other pocket pairs.

As the saying goes, there a three ways to play JJ and all of them are wrong.

Anywho, there is a thread already devoted to this question at
Pocket Jacks How do you play them?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't? Maybe that is a saying too?

Really, nothing wrong with ppJ, I'll take them over any lesser pp. But I also don't overplay them, just ppJ.

Maybe MASTA on to something here? lol.

Somebody has a sig that says:

Theres three ways to play jacks... and they're all wrong.

I agree with that.

I feel the same way with AQ. AQ and JJ have taken me out so many tournaments, including all of the highest stakes tournaments I've ever played in believe it or not.

I bust out of every tournament with J3o.

Heh. Its true. A few days ago I doubled up pretty late in an MTT with KK. The next hand I looked down at AQ in early position. I raised four times the blind, watched the big stack call(MP), and the small blind move in. For some reason I lost my mind and went over the top of the small blinds all in and pushed in myself.

My brilliant move (Which I made without thinking it out obviously) was to re-raise to isolate.

I got called by 10/10 (Big stack) and A/A.

I dont know what I was thinking. I know whats calling me here. I acted really quickly and it was such a donk move. I hate AQ equally as much as JJ.

You made the right play. Calling is pretty bad and folding is way too weak.

Really? See maybe I'm being results oriented... but my M was in the twentys and I could have folded and waited for a better spot.

In hindsight I kicked myself in the ass for two reasons:

1. Why get myself involved with the big stack right now?
2. Why get myself involved with AQ.

The small blind was short, (About M of 8) but not desperate... and I knew he was semi-tight. He had moved in on me two other times after I raised... so that affected me. Also I knew the big stack (Around 50 bbs) didnt need something as good as 10/10 to call my initial raise. And it put me in a squeeze because I had no idea what the big stack was going to do.

At best I'm risking more than a third of my stack with AQ. At worst I'm risking my entire tournament on AQ.

It's hard to say without knowing more about reads and your image and such. I wouldn't put bigstack on a hand nearly as good as TT there...I mean bigstacks call pretty wide and you'd expect him to 3-bet you there unless he's slowrolling with AA.

I play pretty tight as you can probably tell from my posts. And I raise most of the time regardless of what I'm coming in with.

The short stack in the hand was with me for about two and a half hours. I believe he thought I was playing solid values, but he had knocked me off of two previous hands preflop with all in moves. The big stack around fifteen minutes and the only hand I had shown down that he saw was the KK the hand before.

My hope when I make the move is that the Big stack was holding something marginal and the small stack had 10s or something in that range. I could see him making the move with middle pairs.

When I rethought it afterwards... I thought to myself that the only thing I'm beating is AJ.

If the big stack didnt call, I like the play. Being in the squeeze there with AQ I thought I may have played them just way too fast.

Well, it sounds like the shortstack is shoving in a lot so you're well ahead of his range there. I don't know why the bigstack wouldn't three-bet you but would call your 4-bet shove, he's probably an idiot.

Look like this a classic example of thread Hi-jacking

Thanks for the input guys.

What would you do? This correct answer is depends of your position, your amount of chips, your rival chips and your felling about what do you think that your opponent will do.

jj is not a monster hand, if u get it in , your just a slight lead or way behind, ofcoarce everyones right wh the position and is it a cash game mtt or sit n go,stack sizes play a big part also. but i feel every body know this stuff already, I play jj just like pkt 8s, In mtt,wh antes already, if im in late position , medium or shot stackd wh no raise before me, easy push, if a limper before me , I might raise to try to get a better idea of where im at and hopefully atlest get it down to heads up.Ill only call a all in if its a shorter stack than mine and still gives me some chips to regain wh,

I'm not sure that I've ever found occasion to stick it all-in with J3o...

J-J can be very dangerous. It's easy to look down at that painted pair and get really excited, but I think it's best to think lump J-J into the middle pair category. Be careful and hope to flop a set!