Just another humdrum 1-2 NLH game on a weekday afternoon at a locals joint in Vegas.
In EP, peek down and see J-J. A semi-familiar face UTG has already raised to $6.
Hero makes it $15 to go and something surprising happens. There are calls in every position back to the blinds, who fold.
So with $100+ in the pot, the semi-familiar face pushes out about $55-$60 as a four-bet.
Hero pauses to take a look at the four-bettor, who shrugs and blinks and gives Hero the stink-eye.
Getting roughly 2-1, can pocket jacks make this call?
We both have effective stacks of maybe $175-$200.

Effective $175-200 I’d just stuff it and not worry about it either way.

Just GII.

We do not want to get it in before the flop.

We are getting a great price to call off, even if we give the villain a range of {KK+, AKs, AKo}; but if we jam, the villain will be calling with a range like that, and we most certainly do not have the 50%+ equity we need. The money we call with goes in good because of the pot odds. The money we raise with goes in bad.

Moreover, we have position on the villain, and if we jam, we through that advantage away, reduced though it is by the small SPR.

Basically, we want to call and see a flop. If there is an A, K, or Q on the flop we are giving up; if we have an overpair to the board we are calling off with the rest of our stack and losing to their overpairs and (usually) beating their AK; and if we flop a set we are almost always good.

V can easily be squeezing with a hand worse than JJ

It would be helpful to have more specific info about the size of the 4bet, the effective stacks, and the amount of callers behind you. However, you say there is over $100 in the pot and UTG has 4bet to about $60. You have $15 in the pot already, so you are calling $40 - $45 to win at least $160. That is NOT "roughly 2-1," it is greater than 4-1. Getting this price, I don't think folding is an option with any hand.

I think it's best to jam here. If you call, there will be well over $220 in the pot with less than $140 behind. You aren't really going to be able to fold on any flops at that SPR. Also, by jamming you can deny some equity to the players behind you. If you call, you invite them to call with whatever garbage they have (KQo, A7s, 88, etc). If you jam, they will likely fold and you will be heads up against UTG, who should have AK a good amount of the time.

Jamming it in unless you know UTG is only 4! better. If he has AK and calls we're ahead, and if he folds AK we pick up some dead money.

Thoughtful and analytical. Thank you.

Why are you 3betting it to 2.5x? 3x minimum, and honestly if 6 is a tiny raise size, I would go even bigger because people will cold call too much.

Semi familiar face doesn't tell us very much. If they are shrugging and comfortable looking you in the eye, that often is strength. If they are staring at you trying to intimidate you that is a little bit different.

Is $6 normal for the table/them? If it's smaller and now there is a 4bet that is kind of suspect. But that could either mean KK+ or could mean AK.

I think we just fold. SPR is going to be way less than one if we call. Population is way under bluffing 4bets here and villain is almost certainly not folding anything they 4bet here to a jam. We are way behind the range that likely makes this play.

Most 1/2 player have no clue how to play 4bet pots and you are almost certainly facing a jam on the flop. They are underbluffing now and underbluffing the flop, so really you are making the decision to either stack off now or fold.

We don't have the equity to jam if his range is QQ+ and AK.

Terrible advice.

For one, if you assume V is only calling with AA/KK and AK, that means he's folding QQ. Which is good.

We are 40% against AA/KK and AK. There's over $100 in pot and will be $500 with our $200 and v's $200. With $500 in the pot, we are literally getting the exact price we need at 40% equity.



You claim you want to keep position, but then say we are giving up on A, K, Q flops. Which means we aren't using our position at all. And you're taking a passive set mining line when we don't have stacks deep enough to set mine.

If you're just going to fold all A, K, and Q flops, you should just fold now. You're allowing V to jam 100% of his range and you're just folding to a very large amount of flops.



If we just call, we are almost obligated to call flop shoves that have a single A, K, or Q as when we call, we give V the opportunity to bluff and he will likely jam most all flops. We can fold very bad flops like A K Q, A K X, K Q x.......but the rest we have to call if we just flat here. Otherwise you're just torching money and should fold preflop.