What would you do here?

Hello,

Thanks so much for taking the time to help me. Here is an example of what I'm talking about. Last night I'm in a 10+1 3k guaranteed. Tourney started with 350 and I small balled my way to an above average chip stack of 6k with around 70 left. 45 make the money. I had been sitting and waiting for a little while for a reasonable hand when I received JJ in middle position. Someone called the 300 blind from UTG. It was then folded to me when I raised to 2150 really just hoping to take the blinds and the call. It then folded around to the SB who called. At that point I'm suspicious of the callers hand. There are just 2 of us to the flop which is a beautiful one for me. It comes 458 rainbow. The small blind immediatly pushes all in and has me covered. Ok, at this point after my raise I am just above 10BB with blinds changing in a few minutes which would put me under 10 BB. After a little thought I decided that the quick all in by the SB could have easily been an AK bluff or a he might have had middle pair. I thought he would have reraised all in pre flop with AA or KK. Which only leaves one hand that I really feared which was QQ. So I called hoping for the best. And then He turned over his QQ and took all my bread leaving me speechless for at least 25-30 minutes. I mean I played good poker for 2 hours only to get crushed as soon as I had a decent hand. Did I do the right thing by calling. I mean if he turned over AK I would have looked like a genious right? What would you have done in the exact situation? ........................... Starting to really get frustrated here

A lot of the time when you get two overpairs matched up, the player with the smaller pair is doomed to lose the pot (this is different is the board is like 256 and you have sevens in the hole. Your situation is more true here).

I think one thing that hurt you in this hand was your raise PF. I understand wanting to narrow the field, but by raising more than 7 BB's, you had basically committed yourself to that pot, where as a 3.5 or 4 BB raise allows you to still knock out opponents, but allows you the opportunity to get away from the hand (which would have been tough, but easier than when you've lost a third of your chips), and still have a stack that is around the average stack.

Still, even if you hadn't raised as much PF, you might have called his shove on the flop anyway, or, instead, he'd just bet the flop, then you might raise, and all the money would get in that pot that way. This just echoes on my first point that sometimes in that stage of a tournament you just get unlucky.

Well put, cjatud2012. I completely agree with him.

I would have raised to around 1200-1500 total preflop.

But, either way the money is all going in on the flop anyway. You did the right thing by calling, even though you lost. Just chalk it up as variance cause that's what it is. Especially in a small stakes tournament, I don't think many people can get away from JJ in this situation.

Whatever you do don't get down on yourself. Pair over pair is a very standard situation in poker, and you were supposed to go broke there. If I lose that's one way I wanna go out. Get used to this. It will happen many more times if you continue to play poker.

Ahhh, the pocket jacks - never easy. Your flop thinking seems pretty sound, but I also agree that the PF raise was a bit high, you are fairly committed to this pot and thus make a very difficult decision for yourself. I note you say you small balled to a decent stack - any reason you changed strategy here?

In this situation I am trying my best to fold - there are just too many hands that crush me and even those that don't leave me very nervous on turn and river. That is, the best you can expect to see the villain turn over is AK, AQ.

What I hate about this situation is that there is too much going on to make a good read. If the villain has been paying attention to your small ball play what do they make of the big raise? Have they decided PF to push holding rubbish if there is not ace on the flop? Did they have rubbish and hit a miracle straight? Does the state of the tourney (2 hours? and near bubble) make them think that you think that they must have at least a set? In short we are into bluff? double bluff? triple bluff? territory here.

I think this hand shows why small ball can work so well. A smaller PF raise would make the decision easier. With the pot at 4k or so and your stack about the same any bet from the SB on a flop without a jack is going to be a tough call. But if you had raised to 1k you are looking at a pot of 2k and a stack of 5k. A half pot bet from the villain makes a fold survivable or an all in raise have some fold equity.

Would you have played the hand significantly different if you had been dealt KK?

BrackDog, Genius question... would u play KK with the same as u play JJ?

JJ is a hard decision, 1st a few mistake i can see.. ur preflop raise is too big.

2ndly, how is that player playing style? if u had no data on him, try to put him on higher cards than u. what if he hit str8?

i would say fold to the all in. 10BB still cant survive. dont gamble...

But like they say, there's no right or wrong way, tats poker...

i would call it poker destiny. No matter how you play,when KK meets AA, all-in is all you expect.