Newish game, so no one knows a lot about anyone else. Played a few orbits.

V1 ($150) is passive and sees an average number of flops. 60s white guy.
V2 ($300) is a 40 year old black guy. Has raised 100% of his 3 button straddles. Showed AKs when everyone folded pre on one. On another button straddle, he had T6s and bluff caught an obviously bluffing guy with 2nd pair on the river. V2 is a bit of a station and his bet sizings are too big and too small. Plays too many hands. He's the main reason I'm not table changing. He's not afraid to put money in as bettor or caller and it doesn't feel like he plays often. Someone is getting his stack.
Hero ($180)


V2 straddles on the button.
Hero 1st to act in SB. There's a promo where if I make Quad jacks, I get $2,000. I'm pretty sure V2 is raising the button. Plus, if I raise to my normal $20 at this table, everyone is folding, so....
Hero limps with J ♠️ J ♥️
V1 limps in MP
V2 Raises to $15 on button.
Hero calls.
V1 calls.

Flop ($40)
T♠️8♠️2♠️
Hero checks
V1 checks
V2 bets $15.
Hero raises to $45
V1 calls
V2 calls

Turn ($175)
3♦️Hero all-in for $120


Thoughts?

FYI: A few orbits is not a newish table.
You have a read on V1 and V2.
I'd probably check the turn, then call off my stack.

It's a new table in that it just opened up with 100% new players who just arrived at the casino. 3 orbits is 24 hands. That's not newish?

A guy raises 4 straight button straddles. The player keeping you at the table. You limp with JJ to…….call?

Flop. Overplay but v2 is a station so whatever.
Turn idk. Probably an overplay

Noob perspective:

You have a 2% chance of making quads, so the EV there is only $40. Is that more than you'd get by raising pre and building a pot?

I hate monotone flops in that spot. Not sure I like the raise there. I guess you're hoping they chase the flush draw and don't already have it.

On the turn, if it were only V2 in there, I'd jam and try to get him to call with the naked As or Ks. But with both V1 and V2 in there, I guess you're hoping V1 has As and V2 has something stupid like Tx, maybe with Ks also? That said, SPR<1 means you don't have much maneuverability and you don't want to give them a good price to chase a flush if they don't already have you beat.

I guess it's...fine?

You're 36 (or 45) straddles deep and have a read that V2 is going to raise his straddle with any 2 cards if limped to. If that's not reason to limp/3bet, I don't know what would be?

If this guy is raising napkins or even just sooted napkins, then JJ is now the preflop nuts. I probably make it $55 and ship good flops. AP looks fine, I mean I size up a bit OTF but w/e.

$40 is no small thing. What's the typical EV for JJ from the SB? I bet online players have that stat available for a ballpark figure. Without the promo, I'd just open raise JJ.


By c/r the flop, I was hoping for V1 to fold whatever he had......Tx mostly and deny odds to either V with a flush draw.

The expected EV from 3B JJ vs A2C has to be very. Very. High

True, but ATC are not calling a $55 3-bet pre and you're usually going to just win the original raise.

In this particular hand, V1 had A♠️K♦️. So, he was probably no going anywhere at any point in the hand. That's the obvious disadvantage of being first to act. You don't know what's going to happen on each street.

V2 had Q♠️ 6♠️. So, against their exact hands, I had only 39% equity before the flop against both hands.

If I had raised and gotten heads up against V2, I'd have 68% equity pre, but the positional disadvantage might keep me from realizing my equity. Even at the full 68%. there would have to be a $300 pot to have $54 of +EV.

$40 of free EV for one individual holdem hand is a **** ton. If you had that every hand, your hourly rate would be over $1,000.

I'd like to see the math for that $40 EV claim..

I dont see V2 continuing if you three bet to a proper sizing.

There is a fork in the road ahead, you are only allowed to pick one path.

The promotion pays $2,000 for quad jacks.
You make quads 2% of the time you start with a pocket pair. (50-1)
So, 1 out of 50 times you start with quad jacks, you make quads and get paid $2,000. 49 out of 50 times, you get $0 promotion dollars.
$2,000/50 = $40

You have + $40 EV on average for each individual JJ hand (assuming you see enough cards to make quads).

Yeah. I picked the wrong one. I should have check-folded the turn.

I'd like to see the math for that.

The odds of flopping quads is 0.2% The odds of having quads on the river is 2%. The mistake the OP is making is assuming that they'll see the river. The majority of the time, they won't.

100% this. I wouldn’t play it the same but GII OTT and it’s not that big of a deal either way.

There are 48C3 different boards where we have quads by the river. There are 50C5 boards total.

When you divide it comes out as

(48*47*46*120)/(50*49*48*47*46*6)

= (20)/(50*49)

=2/295, which is well under 1%.

Where is that number coming from? People keep repeating those 2% and I have no idea how they came up with it.

Maybe I'll rephrase it for "feel" live poker players: Do we feel it's almost as likely to make quads as it is to make a full house? Or would that sound a little off?

Random math thing about quads:

I guess I'd be lazy and be like:

~12% chance of flopping a set+.
~4% chance of set turning into quads by river

means there's ~0.5% chance of quads by river, or ~$10 a hand and you might well lose that amount by making sure you get to the river or otherwise playing it weird.

We must have looked at the same websites because there's a few of them out there that say the same thing. That just reinforced my erroneous thinking.

It looks like .816% might be the more accurate number; which would be like $16 in EV.

Probably better to just ignore the promotion (pre-flop anyways).

Google it for yourself. Civilization will collapse if you start doubting google results.