$5 NLHE Full Ring: How do you play Jacks?

[TheBigFinn]

BB Villain #1 $0.84
CO Hero $5, holds
Button: Villain #2: $15.02

Just sat down 3 hands ago. 4 folds to Hero, opens for $0.24. Button calls and BB shoves for $0.84. BB could have bigger or smaller pairs and Hero wanted to isolate, so he raised to $1.44. After a small wait Button calls

$2.46 in the pot. Flop comes Looks like a good flop for Hero. All low cards and not many ten combos would call twice. More worried about 55 than a stray ten. I spaz the bet bar and bet $0.05 . Button bets $1.99. It feels like she is trying to get a fold. Hero Can't fold two over and calling makes hero pot committed. Hero shoves and is insta called.
Turn = River =

Villain #1 turns over for a set and Villain #2 shows
Is this just a cooler, or did I over play the jacks? It seems to me it all gets in no matter what I do.

 

[Casey55]

Seems kind of like an overplay, if you flatted pre your JJ are in a good spot still, having JJ in a 4-bet pot is tough, I see why you raised and I understand it but then the flop play really messed things up

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
You opened to almost 5BB, which is extremely large for an online game and might have influenced the way, the whole hand played out. If I am BTN and facing this bizarre oversized open, I might think, it looks very strong and decide to not 3-bet, because the blinds are getting a bad price to call already, and I want to pot control a little bit. When BB ships it in for his 17 bigs, things get very awkward, and at this point I might just ship it hoping, that BTN did not flat with QQ+.

Alternatively you could just call, but playing this pot out of position with a third player all-in is going to be pretty awkward. Your small raise is probably not getting significantly more folds than a flat, so I dont really see that play doing much other than bloat the pot further and create a small side pot. To sum it up I would either just call or jam.

Flop
Since you min-bet by mistake (been there done that), we cant really analyse this street in a normal way. You might have induced the raise, and as you say, TX seems very unlikely to call twice pre. JJ need some protection from overcards, so I would also have shipped it and been done.

Conclusion
I think, the key point to this hand is the highly unusual preflop raise size. Staggered preflop betsizing might have been a thing a decade ago, when Blackrain79 wrote "Crushing the Microstakes", but its not a thing in 2021, not even at 5NL. So just raise to a normal size like 3BB with your entire range, that you want to play. With that being said CO vs. BTN this is a bit of a cooler, and on this runout you might have gone broke regardless.

 

[TheBigFinn]

Seems kind of like an overplay, if you flatted pre your JJ are in a good spot still, having JJ in a 4-bet pot is tough, I see why you raised and I understand it but then the flop play really messed things up.

Flatting the shove is will bring Villain #2 in giving her too good odds turn down. I was hoping to isolate Villain #1. As the cards lay, from Villain #2's perspective I would correctly read a call as denying AA or KK, I don't know if I would have 4-bet after having called. But I would definitely checked to Hero expecting him to at least c-bet and reraising being happy with either a call or a fold.

 

[TheBigFinn]

Games they are a changing

Conclusion
I think, the key point to this hand is the highly unusual preflop raise size. Staggered preflop bet sizing might have been a thing a decade ago, when Blackrain79 wrote "Crushing the Microstakes", but its not a thing in 2021, not even at 5NL. So just raise to a normal size like 3BB with your entire range, that you want to play. With that being said CO vs. BTN this is a bit of a cooler, and on this runout you might have gone broke regardless.

Funny you should write, "Staggered preflop bet sizing might have been a thing a decade ago..." since I am 68, have been playing for 50 years, and started on-line. 20 years ago. I'd basically stopped playing on line on Black Friday and only recently started again, so my sizing may be out of step with the times. I'll try and be more observant.

I would have definitely 3-bet with QQ to any size and consider folding to a 4-bet, depending on the player. perhaps I need to tom=ne down the aggression. I have higher variance these days but have attributed it to the games being looser.