Ok so a little bit of background: I'm stuck a couple buy-ins in the session for the first time in like a month at this table and the image the table has of me is probably that I'm slightly on tilt and definitely that I'm playing loose.

Villain in the big blind however just got stacked by me the previous hand when I called him down all-in for my full rebuy with bottom pair no kicker after putting him on a missed flush draw. The last time we played I also got him to bluff his stack off to me with the nuts so I know he's definitely going to play hardball against me this hand, maybe even slightly tilty or tiltable. He's definitely an aggressive player, and been raising most pots so far.

$1/$2
I have Js10s on the BTN
UTG limps
CO limps
I limp expecting big blind to raise
Big Blind makes it $14(table standard)
UTG calls
CO calls
I call

Flop is QJ8r
Big blind checks
UTG checks
CO bets $18
I call
Big Blind calls
UTG folds
Board at the turn is QJ8Jr

I'm thinking I pretty much have the effective nuts here. JQ is really the only hand that has me drawing dead and knowing players from their hand history I'm pretty sure nobody had a set on the flop.

Big Blind checks
CO checks
I bet one green chip and needle big blind about how I know he wants greens back.
Big Blind tanks for awhile and raises to put me all in
I call pretty much instantly

Big blind shows KJo and the river bricks out.

Did I just get coolered really sick? Did I screw up my line the entire way because I was thinking from before the cards were pitched that big blind was going to stack off on a bluff again? Did I screw up under-representing strength to induce a raise on the turn, when this board basically defines what "hits my range" is as perceived by the table, and I could have probably taken it down with no sweat with a bigger bet on the turn? Did I just level myself into believing that trips with a whatever kick is good enough on it's own to win in this spot?

I feel like villain, based on my read of him and how he has stacked off before to me, basically will always stack off with J10s in this spot if our hands were reversed which is what is making me lean towards simple cooler, but I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this hand.

I'm also wondering, if it is a cooler, if I should really mind a call with KJo here if it means I'll be getting shoved on the same board by villain when I have T9, QJ, J8, and AJ, which are all hands I can show up in this spot with, or if my $25 bet to induce a raise on the turn was so donkish small that it actually excluded those hands from my perceived range and allowed BB to make a kicker play on me.

fold pre
fold turn

gg

All this action really depends on stack sizes.

If bb has 300, I'm fine calling with JTs IP. If bb has anything under 150 though, this is a pretty easy fold.

When the CO leads out, that's where you should fold. MP/gutter/backdoor draw is not where the money should be going in at, and you can't reasonably be good here. On top of that, you have 2 people to act behind you, and you described bb as aggressive, so a c/r is very reasonably in his arsenal. You don't want to see a 10 either, so you really are on a 6 out plan at this point, at which time you still don't have the nuts.

On the turn, the action depends on stack sizes again. If he is jamming for 100 or less, you probably have to call. If he is jamming for like 200, again, snap fold unless the guy is beyond inept.

I should have mentioned, BB is sitting somewhere around $500 and his jam on the turn puts me all in which he had just done on a bluff the previous hand. I had about $220 to start the hand.

When CO leads out, I'm putting him on a naked queen and calling knowing I'm behind at the moment but believing I have implied odds. CO kept his cards and showed Q7s after the action was complete. I have hand history with CO too to believe that this is his standard play with top pair, and I'm thinking if I call I can either make my hand on the turn or make a move if it ends up just me and CO.

You're right, check raise is in his arsenal but 3 barrel with air is also in his arsenal. I'm thinking he makes this move every time if he thinks I have just a 10 in my hand with ATC but maybe that's unreasonable. I'm also thinking he doesn't show down with AJ here because he would have played it harder on the flop since he was preflop raiser.

The total range I was putting BB on here was AA, KK, AQ, AK, 99, 88, KQ, KJ, QT, Q9, Q8, JT, J9, and air and I figured I was monster ahead of most of his range with a blocker to all jack combinations.

Guess he got his greens back lol

pre and turn are understandable but the flop call is pretty loose if co's range is mostly qx

I'm also expecting CO to fold any scare card if I do end up HU with him.

I guess I'm kinda curious about what you do if you don't have the J in your hand OTT. I mean, why does the BB c/shove against you here when you have only put about 57 of a 220 stack in the middle? Are you prone to doing this with your stronger hands? Or does he just think you will always put him on a bluff? Are you calling him down too much? What do you do OTR if he and the CO both call your turn bet and check to you OTR?

I mostly think you got leveled here, but only you can answer some of your questions from the OP. If he and you habitually get in bluffing wars, then yeah, sometimes you will valuetown yourself, it's gonna happen, just move on. But if he has started to exploit some of your game, then you might wanna take a closer look at how you play against him.

well you only beat a bluff. no value hand worse than JT is check jamming here.

so, is he bluffing?

ok we know from prior hands he can bluff big. that suggest that he is aggressive enough to check jam the turn with a straight draw.

but consider the following:
1- CO is still in the pot and acts after him.
2- you hold a blocker to Tx straight draws
3- you stationed him for an entire buyin with bottom freaking pair earlier in the same session

taken together id say the chance that he's bluffing is fairly low. this is an easy fold

If I have no jack in my hand then its a quick fold. He knows I've been calling him down light.

I've also done unorthodox things to him and in front of him in the past like min-betting with very strong hands, limping with very big pairs, and he's seen me play the whole spectrum from nit-tight to any two cards loose.

My entire plan was to influence him into thinking I had whiffed with a draw on the turn and that he could shove and represent his entire preflop range as good. So you're right, it's very good to question why exactly he is check-shoving here. My mistake is that I assumed he was going to check-shove on the turn before he actually did and I was making that bet to induce the shove. I'm learning now that when you attach assumptions to the action before it actually plays out it can cause you to underestimate why exactly your prediction came true.

Let me tell you for sure though that BB is never check-shoving with a boat on this board, so I did assume that no matter what hand I was up against I could pair the board on the river or hit a 10.

I have a tendency too when I'm playing against players that I don't consider either easy or very easy to try to make big plays in marginal way ahead/way behind spots in order to put them on tilt, or at least shut them up against me for the rest of the session. I was pretty sure that if I correctly induced a bluff-shove again for value that I was going to send BB on silent outerspace tilt. This influenced me to calculate the math in a biased way that favored the call by me.

Looking back on it now though, and after hearing input from you guys, its pretty obvious what happened to me now. BB knew that he tried a polarizing bet on the river in the last hand and it failed, so he pulled off the range merge with trips on the next hand. In my mind its now 50% unfortunate luck that I had the jack blocker in my hand and couldn't give him credit for a better jack, 50% a mess up on my part for now realizing that is what he would have been doing. I should know that when he does show up here with a jack that it will almost always beat my jack.

I'm calling because I put him on no boat and if he has no boat then I'm thinking that for a bet that large then his hand is no good, because I'm still reading it as a polarizing play. I should have probably really reconsidered 1) telling him that I thought his play on the last hand was polarizing 2) actually calling because I decided he would continue playing that way into the very next hand. I had to that moment only seen him show down the nuts or basically air and missed draws when all-in.

I've been running into trouble against aggressive players when I've had a big hand and a blocker or two blockers to a bigger hand in my hand and lost big pots because of it recently. It's a leak and I'm working on improving on that aspect of my game.

Wow, what a disaster.

Instead of focusing on the strategy of the hand I'll focus on what I think is the most important lesson here: we need to recognize when we're tilting. Whenever we lose two buy ins, we must stop and ask ourselves if things are okay in our head. Your actions in the hand and even your writing in the post make the tilt clear as day:

You made a pretty loose call preflop. Obviously you were planning on outplaying post flop with a bad RIO hand. This is classic tilt, but maybe we can flop gin?...

We didn't, and we made another really loose call on the flop. Was this the flop we wanted with JTo? No, we want TP minimum or preferably an OESD or two pair+. If we get that OESD, we must never bluff it. We have no fold equity.

On that note, when we are down two buy ins is not the time to make plans to force people off top pairs. When we are down two buy ins, it's time to nit up and get value since people will call us with anything and everything they have. We made the exact backwards adjustment, the classic adjustment tilted players make. And this is what makes us lose so much when we tilt.

You didn't even consider being outkicked with your jack on the turn. Huh? Go back and look at your post. We don't have the "effective nuts" at all... As I was reading it I was like: "why is he capping the villain's range to things we beat?" Just because someone bluffs doesn't mean they can't have a hand. Never believing we can be beat is another symptom of tilt. Would people call the flop with jacks that have us outkicked on the flop? Would they slowplay two pair? The answers to these questions are yes and yes. Tilting makes us think we can soul read people, and we always somehow soul read them into having whatever we beat.

I think the turn call was probably the least bad part of the hand. Still really bad since we beat nothing but complete bluffs and stupidly played top pairs, but maybe I can give you the benefit of the doubt with your read. (?)

Really, you need to get up from the table when you are thinking like you posted. At least take a break, or even better, call it a day. I have a 2 buyin stop loss for this very reason. Consider one yourself. I've never gone beyond two buy ins so I can't prove that it's saved me money, but I'm 99% sure it has saved me tons of money because of how I was thinking and feeling after losing the two buy ins. (I was thinking just like you were actually; believe me I've been there).

Hope this was a helpful sanity check as requested in the thread title (yeah, you need one).

I have a stoploss but it's more than two buy-ins. I also play with 100+ buyins so I feel more comfortable with a larger stoploss. But you're right, when I'm tilting and going to war with one player than I need to consider bringing that down, maybe even to two buy-ins.

I only read the hh not the background but i dont mind the way u played it... U had good relative pos pf and a premium sc.. Flop peel is fine.. And u just got screwed on the turn... Btw bb "standard" open with kj out of the bb is bad...he shld be opening bigger or cking...

Idk why you're limping the button knowing the bb is going to raise.

Either raise yourself to take initiative or fold.

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Well I know exactly why he is making that raise, because he wants to play for stacks if he decides to continue playing the hand on the flop and 4 callers to the initial raise is enough to make shoving a viable play by the turn. I screw myself too by saying he never has the AJ because he has to continue on the flop with AJ.

Part of the reason too I'm discounting CO quite a lot in both my analysis of how I played the hand and how I think he is playing the hand is because I know CO has a hand he's not willing to play for stacks with in this spot and both me and BB are, and I'm pretty sure BB also knows CO will fold to an all in here like all the time on every turn that doesn't bink two pair for him as well.

Ya i was talking about pf tho... He shld either raise bigger than std open or just ck... Turn play is sort of iffy bc he pretty much always has a J in this spot and you only beat J9 (u she board as rainbow) I think as played turn is a fold unless you have a dynamic.. But pf and flop seem ok... Pf could be an open unless you think bb will 3 bet u if so its def a l/c..