$5 NLHE Full Ring: JJ flat or 3 bet?

Stacks:
UTG - UTG ($2.16)
UTG+1 - UTG+1 ($5.00)
UTG+2 - UTG+2 ($5.17) VPIP: 10 PFR: 10 (#10)
MP - MP ($2.55) VPIP: 80 PFR: 20 (#5)
MP2 - Hero ($5.00)
CO - CO ($5.00)
BTN - BTN ($5.00)
SB - SB ($13.61)
BB - BB ($5.00)

Preflop: ($0.07, 9 players) Hero is MP2 with Jd Js
2 folds, UTG+2 raises to $0.15, MP calls $0.15, Hero ??

What should I do here? If I call then I risk letting many other people see a cheap flop when I might have the best hand. If I 3 bet then I risk value owning myself against a possibly tight player from EP (v. small sample however). If I just flat should I play it mainly to set mine?

Without enough reads this would be a 3 bet for me.

youregoodmate said:

Without enough reads this would be a 3 bet for me.

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That's what i did; here was the rest of the hand:

2 folds, UTG+2 raises to $0.15, MP calls $0.15, Hero raises to $0.60, 4 folds, UTG+2 raises to $1.05, MP raises to $2.55 (all-in), 1 fold, UTG+2 calls $1.50

Flop: 9s Jh 6c ($5.77, 2 players, 1 all-in - MP: $0.00, UTG+2: $2.62)

Turn: Kd ($5.77, 2 players, 1 all-in - MP: $0.00, UTG+2: $2.62)

River: Jc ($5.77, 2 players, 1 all-in - MP: $0.00, UTG+2: $2.62)

Total Pot: $5.77
UTG+2 shows Ah Ac (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
MP shows Qs Qh (two pair, Queens and Jacks)


Kinda annoyed that I had to fold after the all in (I would have called the tiny 4 bet) knowing I would have made quad jacks! But then I should try not to be results oriented lol

Yeah it's a fold after that action. Wp

Squeeze here. It is quite a good chance.

Yep, 3bet here is what you should do, after 4bet its clear fold.

I agree with 3betting against looser or great post flop players.

But seriously if we 3bet don't we eliminate a lot of hands we beat and lose value?

Aces2w1n said:

I agree with 3betting against looser or great post flop players.

But seriously if we 3bet don't we eliminate a lot of hands we beat and lose value?

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agree , utg2 seems like he prob ditching (22-99) if he's as nitty as his stats suggest, so i'm not sure 3b is best here. how does the saying go if your not sure what to do vs. a 4b don't 3b?

seems crazy to set-mine w/ JJ, but at FR vs. nit i flat, and at 5nl a lot of nits will stack off w/ an overpair.

note: glad you self replied bout results, i know its heartbreaking but can't be results orientated

Well clearly the decision is easy if I get 4 bet: I have to fold since his range is mostly AA and KK. But I think you do have a good point that vs a nit 3 betting with JJ might actually be value owning yourself, so normally I would probably flat here. But since I only had 10 hands on this guy, it was kinda hard to know for sure if he was a nit or not since such a small sample. Knowing what the cards are, I would obviously have flatted, but without knowing it's kind of a marginal decision.

Hand samples are too small to make a decision based on. We can't say he's a nit.

That's true, tiny sample. I guess there's nothing wrong with 3 betting here then, it was just a shame to see 2 more jacks roll out! Next time I'll have to shove over a nit's 4 bet so I can hit quads again and crack their aces, that would be fun

ok, i agree sample is to small to label opp, but also lends to being in outer space here. i flat because reads lack and its FR(which i don't play, but .....

Not to be resultadista in poker.
Pre flop is not bad to do a re-raise to 0.60 cents. Now if you go back up as a step, no choice but to leave his hand. Just call pre flop play is not bad either. Depends on the range that has the opening

With pocket JJ,i usually flat to any raise cause youll more often than not get into trouble post flop with this hand.

If the player isn't out of line, I'm also flat-calling *without* reads, not 3-betting. They usually don't raise that much with small pocket pairs, maybe 99s and 1010s. I'm thinking the usual premium range. If later on I see them showing down weaker hands like KQs or KJ, then I'm gonna be more aggressive from then on. They just won't fight back against a real hand. My double-ups with JJ come from when I'm the initial aggressor and know for dead certain that I have the best hand.

I don't want to give the player the satisfaction of getting reraised pre with AA. My plan is to stick with the plan - flat call, flop a set. If the c-bet is huge and consistent with the overpair (because the vast majority of players are incapable of firing an equally large c-bet with AK/AQ into multiple callers) then I'm folding and shrugging it off, and will nearly always be validated in my read. Let the blinds call and add to my implied odds - this will make it even easier to define UTG+2 and MP's hands by the strength they show on the flop. On a 10-high board, are you really expecting to stack off and seeing A10 instead of the overpair?

I know an orbit from now I'll be picking up AA and stacking someone with JJ or QQ myself.

el_magiciann said:

Yep, 3bet here is what you should do, after 4bet its clear fold.

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3bet OK. but folding against 2 players seems kind of weak

CactusCat said:

If the player isn't out of line, I'm also flat-calling *without* reads, not 3-betting. They usually don't raise that much with small pocket pairs, maybe 99s and 1010s. I'm thinking the usual premium range. If later on I see them showing down weaker hands like KQs or KJ, then I'm gonna be more aggressive from then on. They just won't fight back against a real hand. My double-ups with JJ come from when I'm the initial aggressor and know for dead certain that I have the best hand.

I don't want to give the player the satisfaction of getting reraised pre with AA. My plan is to stick with the plan - flat call, flop a set. If the c-bet is huge and consistent with the overpair (because the vast majority of players are incapable of firing an equally large c-bet with AK/AQ into multiple callers) then I'm folding and shrugging it off, and will nearly always be validated in my read. Let the blinds call and add to my implied odds - this will make it even easier to define UTG+2 and MP's hands by the strength they show on the flop. On a 10-high board, are you really expecting to stack off and seeing A10 instead of the overpair?

I know an orbit from now I'll be picking up AA and stacking someone with JJ or QQ myself.

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Thanks for this. I agree that flat calling for the benefits of potentially stacking someone when I hit a set makes calling SEEM a little more enticing than 3 betting. But if we intend to fold to a bet if we miss, then wouldn't this essentially be treating JJ like it's 44 or any old set mining pair and hence "wasting" the high card value of the hand? Then again I suppose this is 5nl where "flop a set and bet/bet/bet!" might actually be the most profitable line haha

Pavelito51 said:

3bet OK. but folding against 2 players seems kind of weak

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This makes no sense. This is 5nl. It's pretty uncommon for someone to 4 bet with a range weaker than JJ, and especially for 2 players to do so. As it stands, we were crushed by AA and QQ so folding was clearly best at that point.

mottotom27 said:

Thanks for this. I agree that flat calling for the benefits of potentially stacking someone when I hit a set makes calling SEEM a little more enticing than 3 betting. But if we intend to fold to a bet if we miss, then wouldn't this essentially be treating JJ like it's 44 or any old set mining pair and hence "wasting" the high card value of the hand? Then again I suppose this is 5nl where "flop a set and bet/bet/bet!" might actually be the most profitable line haha

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I'm convinced it's the right play because this is 9-handed and the odds of running into a higher pocket pair isn't trivial: it's still ~13%. So in the objective sense, it's unlikely yes, but with a decent raise and call, then by Bayesian probability and the action I'd suspect that this is likelier to be one of those 1 in 10 times.

Whereas if *I'm* raising first in or targeting limpers, and just get flat-called, and the flop comes low and I'm up against 2 players, I have no reason to believe I don't have the best hand. Even then there are certain players who *always* trap post flop with QQ-AA but I have notes on them and can play a smaller pot by underrepping my hand.

The way I think about it is: how much have 2nd best hands cost you over all your hands playing poker? Postflop, King-high flush vs Ace-high flush, or being oversetted, or hitting a straight only to be rivered by a better one, flopping trips with Ace kicker only to run into a flopped full house, etc.

Isn't preflop is just another street where that can happen? And even though I'll take KK 100% of the time, JJ could well be a 4rth best hand. The reason JJ is a trouble hand is because you're caught in that flux state between absolute hand strength vs. relative hand strength. Even though it sounds weak as hell, using the preflop action to define this and making the decision to turn it into a set mine is sometimes the right play.

What happens if you call in position and it all comes low cards and you see UTG+2 c-bet full pot, then see MP come over the top? You can get away from it with 3 bb invested. But if you flop top set, you're much more disguised because players expect you to 3-bet pre with as big a hand as JJ.

From early position if I get flatted by QQ+, I'm more likely to be trapped postflop, but usually someone will make it known that the higher pocket pair is out there. That's how I get my double ups through JJ, usually by getting it in against draws and isolating a player who plays bad hands over whom I'm a 3 to 1 favorite, and minimizing the times I get stacked by overpairs, sometimes getting rivered by AK or AQ or rivered two pair.

I'm not a fullring player but I think squeezing here is bad and turns your hand into a bluff given FR ranges here. Because once you get action on your 3bet you're either flipping or behind.

Edit: Just realised that MP looks fishy but still , better call here and pray that someone from the button or blinds squeezes and UTG+2 folds.