This table has been playing fairly tight, but interestingly there has been a lot of action from people in the CO and on the button, pots will often get folded to the button who successfully steals. But when things cascade with a limp/raise and a call everyone seems to be getting in the pot. So either everyone folds preflop or its a 90+ dollar pot going in to the flop essentially.

I'm sure I played this hand terribly, but I'm more posting because I think I got myself in some bad positions and was having trouble adjusting to the table when I had medium-high holdings.


Stack sizes
Hero - $650
v1 UTG - ~150 - standard weak loose-preflop player
v2 UTG + 1 - ~150 - standard weak loose-preflop player
v3 CO - 350 - tighter-ish fit/fold type older guy who has a preference for playing smaller pots and who I feel I have a significant post-flop edge on

v4 BB - 260 - thinking player who I know is a regular at the casino where I play. I know he can pick spots appropriately and will GII if he thinks he's ahead. One hand in particular I can remember, I raised PF with AKs and he called, flop came 3-5-10 one spade, I cbet ~2/3 pot, but he shoved for like 7x pot with pocket 8's and showed his hand after I folded.

Hero is CO with JJ

UTG limps, UTG + 2 limps, I limp in CO, BTN raises to 15, BB calls, UTG calls, UTG+2 calls


I had originally hoped to play a smaller pot against 2 players I felt were really terrible and would literally stack off with a top pair of 8's etc... I know, I should be raising this PF for sure, momentary lapse of judgement, but now we're in this spot. I feel like just calling here is massively -EV, but maybe not... There is more to the hand, I just want to get people's feedback on how they would play it from here.

raise more pre. at least $25.

I mean, now that you limped and 4 players are in the hand I don't think you can go wrong with popping it up to 70 or something and stealing the 60 bucks in dead money with JJ.

If you think that the other 3 players are realllllly bad then I guess call and play poker postflop. It's unlikely that the good player does anything too crazy OOP multiway.

But again, there's ~0 chance that BB or UTG/UTG+1 have hands they can go forward with. And button, given description, isn't going to want to play for his stack unless he has KK/AA, in which case you may save some money if the flop comes 10 and lower.

Reraise >>> Call

Set-mining? So far so good I guess.

Make a note re: the guy who shipped 88 on T53r: take his chips.

You need to raise this pre. I know you know that. JJ is the nuts. You have limpers.

These threads are difficult because it's like "I really should have done X - but I did Y. Now what do I do?" It's a question that can be answered, yes - but it doesn't really work that way. It's not the right question. If you're limping pre, it's for a reason - to trap a hyper agro, to set mine with very deep stacks when you have huge implied odds against station fish but raising pre gets zero folds and effectively just decreases your implied odds, etc.

If you're limping pre, it's with a plan and for a reason. With JJ in this situation, it's hard to think of a good reason to limp.

That's problem. You need a plan and a reason.

So what do you do now? Well next time try to know the answer to that question when you take an action. As played, options are raise or call. Not really sure what's best to be honest. Probably raise, but sizing will be weird re: stacks , and I'm not sure what seems worse - raise/fold or raise/don't fold.

If I limp JJ , it's with the intention of re-raising here. (I would not limp JJ here, though.) Now that you've limped and it's been raised/called, re-raising is perfect! You don't give a read or stack on BTN?

Anyway, raise to $75.

Oh, is BTN V3? (You are CO.) Still raising him. If he re-raises/pushes, I'd probably fold. Anyone else, call.

Nothing says JJ faster than a call/raise pf after you called 3 limpers. If the villains are any good, they will know that and be able to play you perfectly. So don't raise the second time around.

Sklansky wrote a long time ago that you have to decide pf how you are going to play JJ: as a big pair or a medium pair. In this case, nobody has shown much so playing it as a big pair is better. Your sets aren't getting paid off from what you knew at the time because nobody says they have anything.

As played, I'd call and hope I got a good flop with lots of people folding on the flop against pressure.

As played ... I think I like just raise/folding vs the "CO" and to like $65-$75 & GII vs anyone else.

BB is the only one described as a good player, and I'm not worried about BB here. If BB is as hero described and had a hand better than JJ, I hope he'd raise. (Of course, w/ the 88 hand, not sure how good he is unless he has a smokin' read on OP.)

I would hate JJ too if I limped behind 2 limpers with it.

I was coming in to post the bolded. Once you limp, you have made the decision to play JJ just like 55. Changing your plan now doesn't make a lot of sense.

I disagree a bit with the first paragraph but only if the button has been particularly aggressive, as I often see a backraise in that spot being a bigger than expected hand, and I have used that line successfully in the past.

One thing I've come to realize lately is that JJ has a "short field" problem, in the sense that Peyton Manning has a hard time hooking up for a TD from the 30 because the defense is crowded into the short end of the field.

If we get a flop with no overcards, it seems likely there will be one or more cards snugged up against J (8, 9, T) that severely limit the number of pp combos we can beat that will likely stand up to any pressure.

It's possible to argue that we should be less aggressive with JJ, to keep crappy hands in play and to mitigate losses when villain has us beat. But at the same time we don't want to give out too many cues about what we are holding.

Is this true? And if it is, then where do we put on the brakes? By reducing bet size? By checking the turn?

I stay awake at night thinking about this. I'm currently in the mode of throwing around a lot of ass pre and playing pot control post. Can't say it's helped much that I can see.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I think the most valuable thing I've taken out of the responses was this:

In this hand, I sort of mixed the two and got myself in a bad position, I went from wanting to play jacks as a medium pair to wanting to play it as a big pair.

Part 2:

Hero repops to 85, BTN folds, BB goes all-in for 260 total, UTG folds, UTG+1 folds.

Pot is now 215, 175 more to call. Given my description of v4 in the original post, what sort of range do you think we can assign him, and do you think a call here is +EV or is it neutral/slightly -EV enough that we can find a fold?

I had ranged him on AKo, AKs, 99-QQ, putting us at 58% equity in the pot, but I'm not sure if anyone else has other opinions on this considering BB only had 15 invested and VPIP another 260 on top. thoughts on my analysis here?

Your line looks FOS.
His looks even more FOS.

You decided to play JJ like a big hand, so put on your big boy pants and call. Even if we add AA/KK to his range, I believe it is still a call.

That hand history you have on him makes me think he's spewy as opposed to thinking. Against a spewy player this is like a snap call.

If he called/pushed from the bb with better than JJ, he played his hand worse than you did. I already said I'm calling if bb pushes, and I still am.

Snapping. Villain has AK much more than AA/KK/QQ. I would expect to see 99/1010 a lot as well.

Grunch

I question v4's ability to "pick spots appropriately" given his 7*pot shove with 88 after your cbet, seems a bit spazzy.

Yes as you mentioned this is clearly a raise. Those two limpers being really terrible is even more of a reason to raise it up. JJ in position against two donks is a fantastic opportunity to isolate.

Ok so you limped and btn raises, why do you think it's -EV to call? You're getting great odds to set mine, and don't forget, your hand has value even without flopping a set.

And after reading part 2, if thats the range you assign v4 how can you fold?

Did you consider your response to a 4bet before you made it $85? If not, that's also something you should take away from this hand.

I'm assuming V3 is Button.

If BB's stack gets much bigger, I'd get a seat change.

I feel your pain preflop regarding this table dynamic (i.e. it's really difficult finding a raise size that walks the line of attempting to get 1 caller instead blowing everyone out or going eleventeen ways to the flop). My table is similar. However, the two shortish 50bb stack poor players have only limped to us, so I think this is a must raise with JJ. I'd probably go about $20 and see if I can get it HU vs one/both of them.

As played, I think we have a choice between just calling and almost setmining (we're getting immediate odds of 4:1 and should easily be profitable postflop) or 3betting. I'm pretty cool with 3betting with all this dead money in the pot and 3 of the stacks being on the shorter side (50bb, 50bb and 87bb of the limp/callers). The only thing that might concern me a bit is Button is described as tightish. A $15 raise isn't much after 3 limpers, and I'm guessing Button knows this. So for me it comes down to whether Button can raise a lotta hands, and would typically raise a lot more if attempting to protect a bigger overpair. I'd probably lean to 3betting, although I don't think calling is horrible (keeping in mind that calling here is clearly profitable, it's just a question of whether it is more profitable to 3bet).

GcluelessNLnoobG

This is the one thing that might tend to put me in the overcall camp, cuz if I end up putting in a lotta money preflop just to end up folding this potential monster making hand in a big pot I kinda hate myself.

Our line looks weird, there's a bunch of dead money in the pot, BB can get creative, and it's only for 87bbs and we have the 4th best starting hand. I'm beating him into the pot with my call.

GsnapcallG

Raise this pre flop. Every time. Why wouldn't we?

As played, easy call.
Who flats in the BB with QQ-AA? And if they do, they are certainly flatting with AK/AQ/TT and lots of other hands that we are doing just fine against (if not beating out right).
And there's tons of dead money in the pot now. And we played our hands weirdly. And he played his hand weirdly.

[x]GII.
[x] ..
[x] ..
[x] Profit.