I have position with J9o ($250)
Villain LAG or TAG ($400-500)
he thinks i'm LAG

UTG straddle
4 Limps
V raise preflop $25
I call, everyone else folds
pot (~$60)

Q J 7rb

V bets $25
I call, Villain stands up (seems nervous)
pot (~$110)

turn K

V c-bets $51
I hesitate call

pot (~$210)

river 9

V c-bets $75
I hesitate call (thinking he might have A10 or Ax bluff)

pot (~$360)

He seem like he didn't want to show his hand, and I couldn't take the long silence, so I showed first. 2 pairs, he mucks. Did I suck out with 2 pairs?

Should I have raised or all-in the river? what line would have been optimal?

Why did you call pf? I think that's a pretty standard fold.

I really don't want to be offensive here (just telling you what I think so it's nothing personal) but if I saw someone play the way you played this hand, I would assume that player is a loose-passive calling station.

I'd probably just fold the flop and turn. Calling is probably fine on the river but it also shows why J9 isn't that good of a hand. You made two pair and it's really not that strong of a hand here. And it's definitely not strong when you make a pair of jacks like you did in this hand (on the flop and turn you had a pair and it was fairly weak).

You played it terrible- fold pre, and why in the world are you continuing on this board?

Villain was calling with low pairs. He's aggressive, and could possibly have anything, seems like he wanted to steal pot. J9o would hold well against a loose range. or am I wrong?

Also a few hands before, he had 87 on a 10 7 3 J 2 three studded board ($200 pot).
he also stood up and flat called a squeeze with a pair of 7s
and he won that hand against KQ. he seemed really aggro

What's the plan if you call and get it heads up and miss the flop? If you're checking and folding a lot then you'll be getting outplayed and your pf call will just lose money. If you call the flop with nothing when you miss then that's not a great situation to be in either unless you know his betting patterns well enough that you're confident you can steal the pot later. In this situation I doubt that's the case.

If I thought villain was trying to make a move then I'd prefer 3-betting and taking over control of the hand over just calling and possibly letting others come along. If someone is fairly new to the game then I'd recommend folding.


You're often going to miss the flop and you'll face a c-bet from villain which puts you in a lousy spot.

How much was the straddle? Even if the UTG straddle was minimum to $4, 4 people had called so there should have been $20-7rake, so at least $63 in the pot... Just saying because if it's more than $4 this goes up...

Were you thinking it was going to be a multi-way pot?

I would say you either got really lucky, or this guy is a total fish and your going to make tons of him through out the session.

just as a though J9o doesnt hold well against any range.
J9o vs random range pf 53.4%
J9o vs 26.2% of hands AXs, A8+, all pocket pairs, KT+, QT+ JT+ K9s+Q9s+J9s+ 43s+ 64s+ and J9o has 38.4% to win.
add a random hand and it has 29%, just 1.5% more than a random hand...

if you take
j9o vs two opponents with a 26% pf range, j9o only has 25%, add another person and it drops to 19%....

what I'm saying is that you were calling with hope.
Hope to flop a straiht, two pair, or some sort of draw. When you call f/t you are hoping to connect to the t/r..... often your two pair are no good, your straight is to the low end so you could potentially be giving more away and still losing... sometimes the opponent has a hand like AJ/JT and you are drawing super thin.

I'm glad you won but beware, often you are drawing to a few outs or potentially drawing to a huge negative implied odds situation. Gl OP, and may the flops be good for you more than average when calling with hands that need it!!!!

also: villian was probably nervous you would draw out on AQ/AJ because you have been making calls like this consistently all night and he has no clue where you are at! +1 for keeping em' in the dark! ; )

thanks for the stats on the J9o, very informative. I would normally not play J9o but i knew V wanted to steal.

I should have mentioned the table I was playing at were tight. I knew it would have been heads up. Yeah I either had a really good read on V or I got lucky on the river. I was guessing my J would hold, and he wanted me to fold judging by the bet size on a tight table.

I was planning to put a large bet bluff if the board was <J. but the Q scared me, so i flatted.

I would fold everytime except river.

Whole hand seems like a trainwreck. Nice catch. Fold pre though...

Wow, um, yeah. Sorry man, but this is horribad.

You're calling 10% of your stack preflop with j9o. J9o is the worst of all worlds. It's easily dominated, has little showdown value, and almost never puts you in a position where you feel comfortably in the lead. You're basically praying for a 10-8-7 rainbow flop.

On the flop, you have middle pair weak kicker. What do you think he has when he bets $25 into $60? That could be a continuation bet with an underpair or AK. But it could also be a set, top pair, AJ, or many other things. When you call the $25, what's your plan for the turn?

The turn brings a king. Now you can't beat AK. He probably isn't firing another barrel with an underpair, since this board smacks your preflop calling range. He bets $51 into $110. Is he doing this because he's stringing you along, or because he's scared? If it's because he's scared, you should turn your hand into a bluff now and raise him out of the pot. If it's because he's stringing you along, you should fold (spoiler alert: it's because he's stringing you along).

I don't hate your call on the river, since he isn't calling with less than your middle two pair anyway.

Honestly, my guess is that villain had aces. And of course you sucked out with two pairs here. There's literally nothing he could've raised with preflop and bet multiple streets with that doesn't beat you on the turn.

Nice hit. I hope it put him on tilt. It was a bad suckout.

Villain is massive spewtard and you are a calling station.

Hand is standard for you both.

Grunch, Fold pre. Flop is pretty meh but not enough info/reads to know the proper play here. Turn is an easy fold. Need more info/reads to know whether to call river. Raising river for value would be terrible.

If he wants to steal the pot then let him steal it. What does it matter to us? We have a terrible hand, we don't know how villain plays, and we have no clue what his hand is. The fact that it's straddled and his bet size is large makes this even worse because now we are playing more short stacked than we would in a normal pot giving us less implied odds if we hit our junk.

Regarding your thoughts on a river shove ...
Are you bluffing or hoping to get called?

Note: Well, the first thing I thought when I saw that you had J9o and asked "...did I play this right?" The first thing I thought was "No". J9o may look good but is not a very good hand. I guess we'll see...on to the hand.

Your V description doesn't really help much. It's like saying, "Well officer, the guy was either black or white." WTF?

PF: So how much is the straddle? I'll assume it's $4. So you must be on the BTN since you have UTG straddling and 5 people acting in front of you. Calling is so horra-bad. Really, really bad! I'm very interested to know why you are calling here.

F: Heads up. Pot can not be $60 if there is a straddle. Minimum straddle has to be $4, so with UTG straddle, 4 limps, V's $25, Hero's $25, SB $1, and BB $2, the pot has to be $73. SPR is 3. V bets out 34%P (LOL). Well I guess since we played this ****ty hand then we should call, especially since it's 34%P. We have $200 left and have put in 20% of our stack.

T: Pot is $123. The K smacks his range a bit more now. V fires 41%P. It just seems he stringing us along here. So for some unknown reason we decide to call with third pair and the gutshot to the dummy straight (a reason why J9 sucks). What are we doing? Just fold. We call and have $149 and have put in 40% of our stack. What the heck is our plan for the river here?

R: Pot is $225. We hit two pair. V fires 33%P. Again, just stringing us along. Well dang, we got this far, might as well call.

Your questions:
Did I suck out with 2 pairs? You obviously did since he mucked.
Should I have raised or all-in the river? No
what line would have been optimal? Folding PF

Shove river for a bluff to rep the 10. Hoping on for a fold.

Everyone saying this is badly played, I agree. I normally would not play this way. I just thought I had a good reads on V bluffs.

Shove river for a bluff to rep the 10. Hoping for a fold.

Everyone saying this is badly played, I agree. I normally would not play this way. I just thought I had a good reads on V bluffs.