$4.40 NLHE MTT Bounty: Awkward spot with JJ...call or fold?

Early/mid stages of the $4.40 Bounty Builder on Stars.
I made a standard raise with JJ from MP, the SB and BB called.


While that flop looks safe for JJ, after a donk lead, a call, a raise, a call and a shove, would you call in this spot? The SB has been quite spewy (although his stats don't exactly say that while the BB has been very tight)


What would you do and why?


Poker Stars, $3.92 Buy-in (125/250 blinds, 38 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 9 Players
Poker Tools Powered By http://www.holdemmanager.com/ - The Ultimate http://www.holdemmanager.com/ Suite.


SB: 30,705 (122.8 bb) VPIP: 29, PFR: 13, 3B: 1, AF: 3.0, Hands: 181
BB: 11,448 (45.8 bb) VPIP: 7, PFR: 3, 3B: 0, AF: 1.0, Hands: 70
UTG+1: 5,577 (22.3 bb)
UTG+2: 11,400 (45.6 bb)
MP1: 8,667 (34.7 bb)
MP2: 2,984 (11.9 bb)
Hero (MP3): 13,654 (54.6 bb) VPIP: 29, PFR: 19, 3B: 6, AF: 1.9, Hands: 180
CO: 8,969 (35.9 bb)
BTN: 19,611 (78.4 bb)


Preflop: Hero is MP3 with J J
4 folds, Hero raises to 562, 2 folds, SB calls 437, BB calls 312


Flop: (2,028) 7 2 6 (3 players)
SB bets 677, BB calls 677, Hero raises to 2,500, SB calls 1,823, BB raises to 10,848 and is all-in, Hero folds, SB calls 8,348


Turn: (26,224) A (2 players, 1 is all-in)
River: (26,224) 3 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Spoiler alert!

Click to Reveal!

Results: 26,224 pot
Final Board: 7 2 6 A 3
SB showed 9 8 and lost (-11,448 net)
BB showed 6 5 and won 26,224 (14,776 net)
Hero mucked J J and lost (-3,100 net)

In a BB you have to call. They will have so many draws and at this limit they also go all in with worse overpairs and even top pair. Especially when you raised. You could also just call the F and fold the T, but I think best play would be to just call their shoves and hope for the best.
Would you also fold KK or AA?

I'd hold the bet if I were you. Because the flop is very * delicious*

Good point. Didn't think of that. If I am folding JJ, I will basically also have to fold QQ+. Basically I put the BB on 2 pair plus. I know they aren't many combinations of that on the board. But that is what I felt and eventually went with my gut feeling. (Which turned out to be horribly wrong in this case lol).

Yea very fair point. Flatting didn't even occur to me once the SB donked out.

I knew we'd agree.

I'd raise more preflop. With the BB, SB, and antes I there's $700 in the pot. From middle position, in a $4 game with JJ I want to thin the field. BB is get 4 to 1 on his call.

Flop is low, which is good, connected which is bad. The don't bet call is very curious. Why not let Hero bet if Villain wants more money in the pot? Hero's reraise is low. After Hero calls the donk bet there is ~$4K in the pot and the reraise is a 1/2 pot bet? What is the purpose of the bet? I want to end the hand now, because there are so few good turn cards. Over pairs are bad, hearts are bad. 6s, 7s, 8s and 9s are better for Villain.

I would raise at least a pot size bet of $4.6K trying to fold out the field. As played I throw up a little in my mouth when I get shoved on, but if Hero had bet more, it would have been an easy call.
As played, in a $4 game I'd reshove.

On the flop it is a matter of pot control. This board is very wet, and hits the blinds range way more than it hits yours. You have an over pair, which may still be good, but with too much action you will be forced to fold with the flop texture. Two hearts on board, you have the for a backdoor draw. Flat call the flop.


I would imagine that if you flat the flop, the SB will probably check the turn. hits your range, and SB also has to worry that you or BB called the flop with a heart draw, since as it turns out that he had no heart in his hand this is even more likely. BB, who also as it turned out had no heart, would also check the turn leaving the action on you with the decision to semi bluff bet or check behind and try to bluff catch while also realizing your equity if you are behind.


At this point, the pot would have been 4,059 with effective stacks of 11,486. I would lean more toward a bet here as the is a fantastic card for your range. You can represent AK with a , or a hand like or a hand like you have, big pair with a heart. The bet doesn't have to be big here, I would bet 30-50% pot, 1200-2000, leaning toward the bigger size if you want to be able to have a pot size all in bet for the river

I understand and agree with the pot control agrument but I also feel that when the board is that scary and so many potential bad turn cards (Obviously didn't know the exact holdings of villains at that point but the donk from SB and the flat from BB indicated one with a draw and another with pair, to me at least that at that point).
Now, the reason for my raise was basically a value raise because I felt I was ahead and I wanted to charge for their drawing hands (The sizing is agruable andI now think it was too small).
The confusion began when the BB over shoved. Usually in these spots (with the stats that villain(BB) had, a fair amount of times he has a set or two pairs. In reality of course he made a crazy play).
I just didn't feel my equity would be that good once the BB shoved.

What I have learned from this discussion, 1. Bigger Preflop raise, specially with a loose rec at SB. 2. Bigger raise on the flop. 3. Maybe even consider flatting and re-evaluate the turn, specially given we have position.

Interesting point about raising bigger Preflop. You are absolutely right that the BB was getting 4 to 1, and with a hand like JJ we don't want to be in multihanded situations even with position.

Also, yes, I can see what you mean by that my re-raise was too small. I was raising for value, putting them on draws and one pair hands (before the BB shoved), so in that case I definitely should have raised bigger. I highly appreciate this point, thanks!

1. Would you raise bigger with all your mid position range where you decide to bet preflop?


2. What you advise what could be the optimal preflop bet size similar situation ?

I am not saying this just because of this hand or the comments above,

But lately, I have been thinking, in mid stages of MTT's, with premium holding like JJ+ and AKs+, maybe its better to 2.5X or 3X instead of 2.2X. Specially from early and mid positions. This could be a possible solution to avoiding those unwanted multi-way tricky spots.

Following that logic:I think should bet other hands same way (for polarizing your range) which is in your MP position range, otherwise somehow people will start to adapt and know exactly what is your holding and deep enought they could use it as advantage... I mean on the mid position vs blinds you are on the position and i feel pretty comfort to bet somehow wider, so why should i make bigger bet rather than standard bet on mid position.


Im not sure that SB willing to give up his drawing hand range when you would bet for example 3BB preflop. The another question is why we should want to get them fold, since we got position, we just want to narrow the field and does 3BB bet will do the work? i do not know....


I think all this depends on dynamics, how loose is the table and what you could read out your opponents stats, since it is given i could assume huge difference between VPIP and PFR means that villain range is somehow messy and willing to play alot hands on preflop and then hit or fold on postflop.


Overall i like idea to bet bigger on preflop since we are on safe zone, got position, plus ante is huge 15% but i like to do it with my whole preflop raising range.

Yea I completely understand what you mean. But I believe during early/mid levels of MTT's full of random recs who barely notice much outside their own hole cards, they will rarely pick up on this. Also will large fields, most rec and even some grinding regs don't pay much attention during early/mid stages to specific players' betting patterns.

Now, if you are labeling good regs/good recs who are capable of exploiting this tendency and they are doing it, then adjust accordingly.

I will definitely not be doing this deep/in the FT because during those even the recs start paying a lot of attention.

I can also see merits for doing it with our whole range. I find this topic quite interesting. I believe that overall, the trend for 2X Preflop raise is going to move towards 2.5X, with the whole range. The reason is that people are adapting to the min raise so well now and the good players are defending very wide and as they are usually good post-flop, they are making overall +EV decisions vs the standard 2X or even 2.2X raises.