$10 NLHE 6-max: JJ in position vs tight 3bet range

$10 NL HE 6-max: JJ in position vs tight 3bet range

I've actually been playing with my HUD off over the past few thousand hands (seem to make better reads, or just getting positive variance) and couldn't see the stats so reads are in the hand history.

His actual stats were 26/20/2.3
Since he seemed to be a reg, my stats on that table were 29/22/1.6



Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($15.22)
SB ($11.25)
BB ($10)
UTG ($9.21)
MP ($21.10)
Hero (CO) ($10)

Preflop: Hero is CO with J , J
2 folds, Hero bets $0.40, 1 fold, SB raises to $1.30, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.90

I've been fairly tight from CO on this table, he's very tight (and aggressive) from the SB so when he 3bets me it's big hand against big hand. Since I'm not happy getting JJ in pre-flop against a 3bet range that's entirely for value I'm just calling. If the flop is high I'll turn my hand into a bluff some of the time or give up depending on board texture and his bet sizing, if the flop is low I'm probably playing for stacks. I expect him to cbet 80% of the time or more, since I'm usually floating that I can't fold very often.

Flop: ($2.70) 2 , 4 , 4 (2 players)
SB bets $1.65, Hero calls $1.65

He cbets, standard. Just tells me he usually has 99-AA, AK/AQ, stacks are going in. I'd shove but I don't want to lose AK/AQ and this guy is aggressive and if he's using a HUD my fold to cbet is disgustingly low so I expect him to bet again on most turns.
The poorly thought out part of my cunning plan is that A turns make me bluffable and K's and Q's hurt my equity a lot (but I still stack), I just didn't think this far ahead at the time.

Turn: ($6) 7 (2 players)
SB bets $3.30, Hero raises to $7.05 (All-In), SB calls $3.75

No more screwing around, nothing is folding, let's just get stacks in.

River: ($20.10) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $20.10 | Rake: $1.34


I expect someone will say "shove pre-flop" but I think stacking JJ 100bb deep at $10nl without me or villain having been playing loose is very spewy. If you disagree, please explain why.

My main issues with this hand are:
Pre-flop: what do I do? Provided that I don't spew horribly post-flop, calling is +EV and raising is... I don't know.
Flop: Shove or call?

I suck in these spots too. The easiest decisions are between getting it AI and folding.

Not sure if this is the right way to figure it out mathmatically, but I'm bored at work and want to try for some practice (feel free to ignore):

Use pokerstove to put him on a range* and find your equity.

$20.10 x (your equity) = EV of getting it all in preflop. Now compair that EV to your remaining effective stack of $9.60 (what you would have "saved" by folding)... is it a gain, loss...break even?

Say you realize it's a loss of $0.90 every time you push. If you think he will give up to your all-in bet preflop more than 33% of the time than it's profitable to shove since you pick up that $1.80 sitting on the table. So I guess what you could do here is then multiply his all-in calling range by 1.33 to see what additional hands he would need in his 3bet range for this to be profitable. Do these additional hands seem like a realistic selection for him to 3bet you from the blinds in?

Not sure if I messed up somewhere, but that would help give us an idea of where we stand vs certain villains. Playing around with different ranges for different types of players would give an idea of what we can push with profitably in this position.

As for analysis of the exact hand you posted...

thepokerkid123 said:

I've been fairly tight from CO on this table, he's very tight (and aggressive) from the SB so when he 3bets me it's big hand against big hand. Since I'm not happy getting JJ in pre-flop against a 3bet range that's entirely for value I'm just calling. If the flop is high I'll turn my hand into a bluff some of the time or give up depending on board texture and his bet sizing, if the flop is low I'm probably playing for stacks. I expect him to cbet 80% of the time or more, since I'm usually floating that I can't fold very often.

Click to expand...

If he is as tight as you believe, then I might lean towards a fold. I don't like the logic behind flatting here. It always seems when I flat in these types of situations, it is because I'm really not sure what to do and am lost in the hand. I don't want to lose more money, and I don't want to give up - I really have no game plan.

If I had to break down your strategy/play preflop in it's simplest form I would say it looks a lot like you are set mining.

I don't think folding is wrong if villain is a nit and is only 3betting here for pure value. It's hard to set mine with proper odds in 3bet pots, and that's essentially what we're doing when we flat here. Although I must admit, if we're going to set mine in a 3bet pot, this might be the best possible scenario since we have position and are against a villian which we believe to almost always have a very good hand (better chance he will be able to get his entire stack in post flop).

thepokerkid123 said:

calling is +EV and raising is... I don't know.

Click to expand...

Any math/history/logic behind that?



*I'm also wondering about if we 4bet but not all in (with the intention of calling his shove)... we still may get a similar amount of folds, but it may induce him to shove over w/ certain hands that he would never call our AI shove with. Would this increase our equity in the hand and also decrease the amount of times we need to get folds PF? Or is my logic flawed here?

There would have to be some very specific meta-game going on between me and another reg in order for me to 4bet JJ preflop, and I don't think folding in position is a great option either against just about any range we assign him, because:

1. If he's squeaky tight, we get close to the necessary odds we need to just set-mine, or
2. If he's 3-betting wide, we have good equity in position.

Very few players have a 3-betting range set-up where we're losing money if we call, if it's even possible. That range would have to be something like 70/30 between trash and QQ/KK/AA (don't quote me on those numbers) AND he'd have to be able to play really well postflop. I'm willing to bet that no $10NL players have given their 3-betting range that sort of thought.

As for postflop, I think both calling and raising the flop has merit. Unfortunately for you, stacks are a little awkward for doing what would be my preferred flop play: Raise small and call a shove. With stacks the way they are (courtesy of the 4x open and his decently large 3bet), your raise would almost have to be a shove and in that case I'm leaning more towards calling being better because you'll get some extra value out of bluffs when you do, but on the turn... Just get it in.

So yeah, I play this the same way you do with the only difference being that I don't raise to 4x in the CO. Whether or not your opening raise size is something you should reconsider is a matter for a different thread though, I think.

Would you have folded the flop if it came high cards w/o a J?
If your not getting away from this hand on the flop why not shove pre and pick up some fold equity to go along with your pot equity.
By the time your stack was in there was no way a fold was happening with anything you beat, I guess some mid pp you beat may still be there and maybe even AK (this is 10nl after all)- but you were both committed at that point.
I hate folding JJ pre, but I feel like most tight players arent 3-betting from the sb with less than TT/AQ, and AK is calling a shove.
Given that your not folding postflop why not shove pre?

F Paulsson said:

1. If he's squeaky tight, we get close to the necessary odds we need to just set-mine, or
2. If he's 3-betting wide, we have good equity in position.

Click to expand...

Hmmm, I guess (1) would be similar to the situation we're in. I see where you're coming from.

Just out of curiousity, what if he's fits in between the two of these characteristics...or a more common scenario in which we have no (reliable) reads? Do you still flat in that spot too? Are we using this as more of a set mine/bluff catcher?