Low Stakes MTT

Blinds are at $1500/$3000

My stack: $40,000

My Position: Middle

My Hand: JJ

Opponent is UTG.

Pre-flop: Opponent bets about 2.5 BB. Everyone between him and me folds. I consider making a 3-bet here, but since my opponent is playing from UTG and this usually indicates a very strong hand and since JJ's are an iffy hand, I decide just to call. Everyone else folds except for the CO, who also calls.

Flop is: Qc 8c 10d

UTG checks; I check as well, and the CO checks.

Turn card is the 9h, improving my hand to a straight.

UTG checks again; I fire a pot sized bet, around $10,000. CO folds, UTG calls.

The river card is the 9s.

My opponent shoves all-in. I thank about it for a few seconds, and since I have only about 10bb at this point in the tournament and I think my opponent has an over pair, I call.

My opponent show's quad 99's and knocks me out of the tournament.


Any advice on how I could have played this hand better? Would you have 3-bet in my position?


Thanks.

Kevin

Well, I think your initial call was fine and your reasoning sound regarding position and the strength of your hand.

On the flop, the check from your opponent is tricky: they might have completely missed the flop with a hand like AK or they may be trapping. More likely the first, so a bet wouldn't be a bad idea necessarily. However, the difficulty is that they might call with a lot of hands that could draw to a straight if you hit trip jacks. Basically anything with a 9.

On the turn, you have to ask yourself, what could they have that's better than you? Only JK, and I wouldn't put them on that with the raise they made pre-flop. So you could go all in on the turn, knowing you must be ahead and take down what's been bet pre-flop.

Otherwise, knowing his hand range, he could call with trips (as he did), hoping for the board to pair (which it did). Folding a straight when the board is paired is difficult to do and most likely you will call a largish bet, which he's counting on.

a few things...

welcome to these boards. i think you'll enjoy it.

i think pre-flop is fine... alot will say shove if you have some read on UTG... u might be against higher pocket pair or 50/50% but you let the 3rd player in which means your JJ don't have great chance of leading on flop.

complete auto-call on end....

where are we in the tourney?

your BB math is off.. i have you with 7.5BB not 10BB on river.

people post these in other threads........ this is books thread.

kinda weird you have 2 posts and the first person that replied has 1 post... anyway, it doesn't really matter anyway.

Wrong Forum!

This is for Books and Publications,

Not a felony or anything, I have posted in the wrong forum before. You will get the hang of what goes where.

Thank you for your post.

I had to start somewhere.

Yup, wrong forum. Copy your post and start a new thread in the appropriate "tournament poker" forum, based on the size of the buy in. This will likely be locked soon.

Don't give the results in the new version of this either. It biases people's responses. Instead just get up to the V's river shove and say "hero: ??"