1/3 been playing at the table about an hour. Overall a pretty loose table with a drooling fish to my right. Like contemplated calling 100 pf 3 ways w 83 off fish. But he has been catching so he sits on about 450.

V1 is a mid 30s white male, played w him before. Overall solid TAG but will chase draws and can lay it down when he is beat. Been running really well, making a lot of hands. ~1600 behind

V2 is the drooling fish described above. I'm hardly ever giving him credit. He has double barreled 92 off and shown the bluff. He plays atc and calls off super light. 450 behind

V3 is 30s white guy. Gelled spiked hair and glasses. Played w him a few times before. Loosing/break even play. Not afraid of action, have seen him chase draws at times but usually plays pretty straight forward and doesn't do anything crazy. 300 behind

Hero 20s white guy. Solid TAG regular, haven't played a ton of hands, but been in a few so I don't look super nitty. Been talking w a few other regs at the table so I'm probably pinned as a reg by others at the table. 300 behind. Onto the hand

Hero UTG w JJ. I just limp, not crazy about playing jacks with an open from UTG. Open to thoughts on this.

MP call. V2 in CO limps. V3 in sb limps.V1 in Bb raises to 40. Hero calls. MP folds. V2 and V3 call from CO and SB. v3 makes comment of well now I have to come before calling.

4 players to flop (123)
9c 4h 2s
V1 checks. Hero bets 75. V2 calls. V3 calls. V1 folds.

3 players to turn (348)
8h
V3 shoves from sb, has me covered, hero has ~210 behind. Hero? Will post results later.

Limping Jacks makes them infinitely more difficult to play. Just raise pre. As played, I think I'm just folding when BB 13x's it from the BB. That is insane. Is he serious?!?

Never limp.

Sounds like a juicy game.

What a hot mess.

WTF kind of game is this in which multiple people are limp-calling 13x raises?

First of all, limping JJ UTG is bad. Raise.

I suppose you're fine calling the $40, but my God that's a big raise.

If someone raises to 40 and gets three callers, the pot is not 123.

I like the fact that you bet the flop, but it needs to be bigger, especially since the pot size you presented is incorrect. It looks like the pot is 163. Therefore, I probably bet 125 and get it in if possible. You won't find many better flops without a jack in them.

As played, call the shove.

Well, you said V3 isn't crazy. That kind of bet makes me think 2p+. And at 1/3 I suspect it is, the vast vast majority of the time.

I don't think limping jacks makes it hard to play. You're playing them like a small pair. Just stick to the plan, if you're going to do that.

By "playing them like a small pair," I assume you mean set-mining.

Why would you choose to play the fourth best hand in hold'em like a small pair?

Sure, if you play Queens and Kings like that it's easy to play them as well. However, anytime you play a value hand like a small pair you are playing them sub-optimally.

Sorry guys, raise was 30 preflop not 40 with three calls. Made the post from my phone. Pot sizing is correct at 123.


Thanks for the discussion

Ok. A 10x raise seems more reasonable.

Bet ~90 on the flop.

As played, call the shove.

If the table is loose and an EP raise is likely to go very multiway, especially at this table where we are like the shortstack at $300, then I actually prefer open limping JJ from EP. It's totally fine, imo.

What do you make of V1's huge preflop raise? It's my guess that he simply sees the table for what it is, full of extremely loose preflop players who are likely to call a lol raise like this, and he's simply trying to setup an SPR with a good hand that he can stack off to postflop with these largish stacksizes (basically trying to iso the fish), and given the fact that 3 people just called a 13xBB preflop raise, he's exactly correct. I find preflop a really difficult spot at this point, because we can't really setmine to this huge raise size, although it is possible our hand is best, but against a solid guy it might not be and I really don't want to play for 100bb stacks preflop with it. I would actually consider limp/folding here, as lol as that sounds, unless V1 has been raising large a lot and showing up with some mediocre holdings.

Arg, now I see it's $30, which makes preflop a little bit more borderline in that it is closer to setmining, cuz while it is a huge 10% of our stack, we are likely going to go 4way to the flop with morons. I think I'm actually on board with preflop, even though I don't feel great about it.

When V1 checks we probably have the best hand, so I think I've switched from setmining mode against him to committing mode. Even though this is a 4way pot (which I really hate committing with overpairs to), I think I feel committed here, especially on this board where a couple of our opponents will probably consider any pair the nuts here. I also bet large on the flop to get the rest in on the turn.

No draws completed on the turn (other than something like 98) and we're simply getting too good of odds to fold at this point. I don't feel great about it cuz we did get two callers to our flop bet on this dry board, but I kinda felt committed in this hand as soon as V1 checked the flop.

My guess is you're going to get bashed for the way you played this hand, but if you called the turn, I'm actually ok with it. Postflop was a little difficult due to the fact we have a small SPR in a multiway pot, but if we raised preflop ourselves, we put ourselves in this difficult situation 100% of the time, whereas if we open limped like we did, we only put ourselves in this tricky situation a much smaller percentage of the time. The smaller percentage of the time we put ourselves in troublesome spots, the better we'll do overall.

Git'sfine,imoG

grunch: call

tough one. what would limp-call, call your flop bet and then shove the turn?? it's not a super drawy board, not exactly dry either. i suppose 8-9 makes the most sense. but maybe 9x is there and decided it's time to take down the pot? maybe a weirdly played oesd? a set is always a fear but why fast play it on the turn? pot odds are just good enough for me to call but i'd be almost expecting to see 8-9 or a set. hopefully he turns over TT.

i'm fine with the limp call pre. you're out of position and had the odds to set mine. this board is almost begging you to play for it though. and now here we are. as everyone says, jacks are tough to play.

just to clarify the action...

V1 (BB) raises $30
Hero (UTG) calls
V2 (CO) calls
V3 (SB) calls

Pot: 123
F: 9 4 2

V3 (sb) checks
V1 (bb) checks
Hero bets 75
V2 calls
V3 calls
V1 folds

Pot: 348
T: 8

V3 shoves for 195
Hero??

Well, I think it's safe to say that V3 can be doing this with a lot of hands.
He has had relative position the whole time and has enjoyed the benefits of getting correct pot odds to call with almost any two.

I agree with other posters that you should have bet your JJ preflop. (BTW - do you have the J?) Especially if it would have had you going HU against a drooler.

Okay - back to the lecture at hand...
After V3 shoves - pot is like $550 - you've got 200 or so behind... so if you shove, you're not getting V2 to fold a flush draw. So you've got to be concerned about that.

Based on the SB's bet line - my guess is he's in a comfortable position with a hand that has a lot of outs. A9 or JT seem the most likely... (unless we have the J)...or he may have any X9.

Other possibilities are 89, 22 and 44 - and V3 wants to fold out/make heart draws pay.

Anything else that V3 holds would spewing and you said V3 "plays pretty straight forward and doesn't do anything crazy."

Based on this, you're either way ahead - but have to fade 9-17 outs. Or you're way behind and have 2 outs.

You're getting nearly 3:1 on you money... more if V2 calls.
If it were me, unless I'm certain V3 has the nuts, I think I have to call here... but no fist pump.

Ahead but dodging 9-17 outs is not "way ahead."

Regardless, I advocate getting the money in here.

Sage advise from the poker philosopher Norm Chad: "Pocket Jacks are un-playable. It doesn't matter what you do, it's wrong."

* Kinda meh on the limp/call. I don't really get your reasoning. Are you afraid to get 3bet?
* Otf, this really needs to be closer to pot-sized imo. You flopped just about the best you could here: an over-pair and probably have the best hand, the pot's bloated, you're multi-way...Don't worry that the board's kinda dry, imo. If you take it down right here, would that be so bad? Get the chips in.
* As played, this is a tricky spot, which is another reason to play a bit faster. You said villain doesn't get out of line much, do you really think he'd donk-bluff into 3 opponents on this turn? I doubt he shoves A9/A8. Puke-Fold imo