$10NL: JJ in BB facing 3-bet

I get JJ in the BB, ready to raise/3bet, when someone 3 bets before it gets to me.

At this point I have something like 26 hands on him, 12/6 but the interesting thing this early is that his 3bet rate is already 25. I didn't see the other hands go down.

$10NL full ring is not exactly full of light 3 bettors/squeezers except for loose short stacks. Is this too little info to turn JJ into a bluff and 4 bet?


poker stars, $0.05/$0.10 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

CO: 100 bb
BTN: 100 bb
SB: 108.5 bb
Hero (BB): 101.5 bb
UTG: 101.5 bb
UTG+1: 85 bb
MP1: 101.5 bb
MP2: 103.5 bb
MP3: 154.5 bb

Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with J J
UTG folds,
UTG+1 raises to 3 bb, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, MP3 calls 3 bb,
CO raises to 9 bb, BTN folds, SB folds,
Hero ???


If we 4bet and get called, what do we do on the flop?

If we flat, what's our plan on the flop?

And in both cases, what if one or both of the other two players come along?

Flop: 3 K 4

First, I hate flatting this and playing the hand oop. You aren't getting odds to set-mine, and against a 12/6 3-betting, JJ OOP isn't spectacular. As far as 4 betting and "turning our hand into a bluff", I don't like this line at all either. Just my opinion, but I prefer letting this go PF and moving on to the next hand.

I dunno about not getting odds; two other players, everyone with full stacks, have already shown interest in playing along. Flatting might keep them in the hand as well.

If you have 100bb stack and it costs 9BB to set-mine, you're a little short. I've been told 12x is a good number to go by to make up for the times you miss or you don't win a stack. Also, if you are going to play this hand to set-mine OOP against two opponents, would you do the same with 77? 33?

If I have 100 BBs and the one other person has 200 or 300 BBs, then no I don't have odds. My implied odds are only 100 BBs max.

But if I have 100 and two or three opponents are in each with 100 BBs, then yes I do set mine with implied odds max of 200 or 300. I don't think you can just add them up and say it's 200 or 300, but it's better than 100 even if everyone has just 100 BBs.

Alright, understood. In this case, if you are looking to set-mine against two opponents flatting here might be ok. I don't like the 4bet, as I said. Only problem is when you flat and its a rag flop, are you getting away from this vs heavy action?

I know implied odds are a big part of FR because of all the nitty players who pay off every time with overpair/TPTK type hands, but I still think that people depend way too much on them. You can't possibly count the whole stack of every person in the pot towards your implied odds, but it does help.

I play 6max, and as such the ranges are WAY wider than in FR, but I honestly don't think throwing out the idea of implied odds in 3bet pots (where the reraise isn't unusually small) is a bad idea. Even in FR I'm almost sure that even with position, it's a mistake to call a 3bet with a small pair purely for implied odds. You have to be making some kind of move - and I mean making, like probably at least %20 of the time - after the flop to make it profitable. I'm not sure that's true in FR since the ranges are just so strong that you won't get folds often enough.

We can basically consider JJ as 22 here if we're considering flatting, since it's mostly with the intention of setmining and giving up if we miss (we can't really call a flop bet and fold on the turn if we have any more callers since the pot will be so big you'll be committed). That said, I'm not sure our implied odds are that great here, nor are our pot odds, plus the original raiser or someone else could potentially reraise and ruin it all for us.

I doubt getting it all in preflop is profitable too. It's pretty standard to fold to an utg vs anything else that 3bets if we're holding JJ. Hell, it wouldn't be a slam dunk to get it in even in an aggressive 6max game.

If we somehow are getting implied odds, call, and see a Kxx flop, we can't really do anything other than check-fold.

All this is on the assumption that your opponents are unknown. The reads you have (especially the 3bet % on that one player) really don't mean anything. 3bet %s take a while to converge, and it's just as likely that he picked up two monster hands than he is a maniac given our sample size.

^^^edited, may have gone on a little bit of a tangent.

I guess the danger that JJ has over 22 for me as well is a low board. The 3 bet could be AK but on a low board personally I probably run the risk of not being able to fold, depending on how aggressive I view the 3 bettor as.



As it turned out he 3 bet another hand later at the same table but not something I was involved in. But you're right Chuck, last night I 3 bet one guy twice and raised his limp once, but I was picking up monsters. The third time it cost him a bit when he tried to play back by checkraising the flop and I shoved. He folded and I apologized saying that I wasn't targeting him.

NineLions said:

I guess the danger that JJ has over 22 for me as well is a low board. The 3 bet could be AK but on a low board personally I probably run the risk of not being able to fold, depending on how aggressive I view the 3 bettor as.



As it turned out he 3 bet another hand later at the same table but not something I was involved in. But you're right Chuck, last night I 3 bet one guy twice and raised his limp once, but I was picking up monsters. The third time it cost him a bit when he tried to play back by checkraising the flop and I shoved. He folded and I apologized saying that I wasn't targeting him.

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Why would u tell him that? Its just messing up a good image you have established.
Why wouldnt u whant him to think your raising him with trash or w/e?
It makes him more likly to keep trying to "outplay" you witch judging from the limited play if seen from u in CC games should translate directly into $ in your acount when u value bet him to death with a monster.
Aggro maniac image is a good think.

And yeah i agree with above, 4bet or fold(fold imo in this situation). Set-mining in 3-bet pot is to exspensive.

I dunno; I like to be friendly and he seemed like a decent player, better than most.

At $10 it doesn't count for much either way. I don't play long in each session and don't often come across the same players. $25 seems much different in terms of regulars.

But, your point is taken.