I would cold-call with AA's as well if I had to make a choice. Both of these hands are monsters especially given the scenario. I'd say that both of these hands are too strong not to 4 bet. JJ's certainly benefit fron getting overcards to fold pre.

Shouldn't 5 bets be the cap in a straddled pot?

That depends on house rules. I agree that it "should be", but in some places a straddle doesn't increase the total number of bets.

I could see checking back in a truly capped pot because ranges shrink up dramatically. But OP seems to imply the straddle counts as a raise, so 4 bets isn't a real cap, and if that's the case, I agree checking back JJ is pretty awful.

I still can't get on board Mason's train that leads to the idea that winning a pot is a more desirable outcome than winning more money on average.

I believe we had a debate on this several years back (possible based on an example hand from HHSE) and Mason contributed to that thread as well. Same sort of situation, where Mason argued that there would be a greater chance that we would win the pot by checking the flop and raising the turn to face the field with a double big bet as compared to betting the flop, bloating the pot, and getting checked to on the turn. If I was competent enough to use the search function, I would.

I disagree with that logic in this particular hand for a few reasons: (1) if we raise "any" turn card, what exactly is our river plan. are we making a free showdown raise. There are a lot of turn cards we don't like - anything above a Jack and anything that pairs the board; (2) we are missing out on our immediate equity in an effort to win the pot and I do not think the percentage increase in our chances to win the pot by delaying is going to make up the difference (obv no math here); (3) I really don't think that bloating the pot with an additional small bet on the flop really changes how players will play on the turn - most of them don't really realize the difference between 10 to 1 or 25 to 1. They realize they have a piece of it and call, or don't have a piece of it and fold.

So many mistakes have been made in the hand pre-flop, you're winrate should still be golden regardless of whether you choose the "double-turn-bet" play or the lead the flop play. You're not playing very tough competition.

no, checking the flop is not the play. Gross.

I just don't see the logic at all. We are sacrificing immediate value in order to increase our chances of winning, however, we have no evidence that checking will increase our chances of winning the pot.

I'd argue giving a free card decreases our chance of winning the pot. There are tons of one over-card type hands and small pocket pairs that may fold to a flop bet but could easily improve to beat you on the turn. There are tons of 45s type hands out there that would have folded to a flop bet, but will call a turn bet once they improve to a pair or a guts hot or whatever.

We are also neglecting the possibility that we bet and get checkraised, facing the other players with 2 bets. We are assuming someone wont bet into us on the turn when we bet the flop anyway. We are then also assuming that someone will bet the turn because we check. Well what if an early position player bets? We have again failed to protect our hand? What if the player on our right doesn't bet his AK? He has already ignored an opportunity for implicit collusion on the flop, why are we assuming he will now attempt it on the turn, after we have shown weakness and won't necessarily raise?

It just doesn't add up at all for me..

I think it would be pretty tough to make a strong argument that checking here has a higher EV in a vacuum than betting. A much more reasonable argument is that an overall strategy that involves checking some AJ-AK/KQ/JJ-AA has a higher EV than betting 100%. I'm not sure if that's true, but it at least seems defensible. And as other posters have mentioned, we should probably be more inclined to bet JJ than AA.

It’s only more desirable when the pot is very big.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Paul:

If they’re going to call your flop bet with all hands three outs and up, then betting the flop should only have a small impact on your probability of winning the pot. The key to this play is that in very large pots many players will call with almost anything on both the flop and the turn. On the other hand, if you believe they’ll still fold many of these hands to your flop bet, then betting is still best. But that’s not my experience .

As for your counter examples, these plays are often “two-edged swords” and you have to balance these probabilities as best you can. But the larger the pot and/or the more vulnerable your hand, which is counter-intuitive if you think about it, the more likely a play like this is correct.

Best wishes,
Mason

See, I would think AA would be a much better candidate for this play since we can safely raise any turn-card. I can see a counter argument, though, since AA is sacrificing more value by checking than JJ is.

Mason, I know you know you think that posters on this site pretend to be more math oriented than they actually are (and I agree with you btw) but are you willing to offer any math to back up your position? In all honesty, I don’t play much LHE anymore, but I have math degree, so maybe I’ll bd able to follow.

Hi ninefingershuffle:

Not quite. In my Gambling Theory book I state that successful gamblers are statisticians and not mathematicians and the question you're asking, which has been asked a number of times in these threads, is a good example of this difficulty.

Specifically, you can't produce a mathematical proof that encompasses all possible playing scenarios and I'm sure that doing simulations that would do essentially the same would just be too complex to program. However, you can use certain statistical concepts to help you decide the merits of these ideas and when thay might be the best approach. And again, as I've done in other places, I recommend reading the "Playing in Loose Games" section in our book Hold 'em for Advanced Players written by David Sklansky and myself. You'll see that even though this is a book on limit hold 'em, we actually start off these ideas with an example from razz (seven-card stud played for low) where some of this stuff is more easy to see and understand.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Paul:

While what you say is true, there's another side to this. It's easier to draw out on a pair of jacks than it is a pair of aces. For example, if an opponet calls with a hand like king-ten and catches a king, he'll beat the jacks but not the aces. Therefore, stopping someone who would normally see both the turn and river cards to only seeing the turn card is more valuable when you have jacks than when you have aces.

Best wishes,
Mason

Checking this flop would be more ridiculous than not raising QQ 8 ways pre-flop.

Checking this flop is bad. Don't do it.

Thanks Mason, but I'm still confused:

You recently posted an article where you chose to only complete the sb with TT after 5 limpers. 6.5 small bets doesn't seem like a very big pot to me. I assumed you passed on immediate equity by not raising in order to increase your chances of winning the pot. Was there some other reason?

You also noted you had no objection to raising, but I'm curious what your reasoning was to forego putting in an additional $20 more, to create a likely $140 pot with a hand that is almost a 2 to 1 equity favorite v the field.

There are likely 2 reasons you can't think of a single player that would check here, I'm curuious which you think is more likely:

(1) its a concept that has went largely ignored or undiscovered by every successful holdem player there is or (2) they don't do it because its wrong.

For a more detailed discussion of why its wrong please see my post, Why checking JJ here is just terrible.

Best wishes Jon

WHY CHECKING JJ HERE IS JUST TERRIBLE:

(one last post just then back to retirement) There are numerous problems with checking JJ here so lets try and go through just a few reasons why its just horrible to check this flop:

For starters, one reason people play poorly is because they don't look at hands on a hand by hand basis. People may look at this situation as a large pot and play accordingly but thats not sufifcent, the may look at this as a large pot with an overpair but thats not sufficenient. This situation is unique and this situation is JJ on an 893 flop....

Why is this uniquie, because lets look at the range of hands we are actually targeting to fold out on the turn with taking this line. Hands like Ax, KQ, underpair, bad gutshots are going to fold the turn for 1 bet (so we never want to give them a free turn card then watch them fold turn for 1 bet). The hands that will call the turn that we want to fold are mostly hands that have a gutter or stragiht draws, JT, JQ to name a few (T7s) if its in there, we would love these hands to fold, but guess what....we have JJ. We just block a ton of the JT, JQ combos and block the outs to T7s as well. What this means is players will have a range of hands that will mostly fold the turn for 1 bet or two at a fairly similar frequency.

Now lets move on to the next part of the analysis we ignored by not looking at this hand on a case by case basis. Let assume we capped pre and we checked back the flop. Now we are hoping that cutoff bets and we can raise. Lets assume teh turn is a 3 which is great and it checks to the cutoff. What does he bet on the 8933 board. Well since we would likely try and cr flop his range is uncapped here. He's not going to bet AQ and could possibly bet AK, but most likely wouldn't. We already know his range is 77+, 89s, ATs+. So basically he bets 77, TT, and QQ-AA. if he has QQ-AA we now manage to get in 3 bets on the turn basically drawing dead and if we has TT we don't care to much about getting everyone else to fold because there are now 4 dead Tens and Jacks so all of the hands they may peel won't even have that may outs.

A lot of the reasons, the raise turn to get people to fold line wont work have already been covered so I won't go over them to much. I'll just restate that I think its horrible and if you actually look at this specific hand on this specific flop texture rather than some abstract concept generally I can't see any way you cold arrive at a different conclusion.

No more content posts from me, Good luck at the pokers

If you were to read the article again you would see that I only called partly because of the discussion we were having here. I do agree that 6.5 bets is not a big pot.

Best wishes,
Mason

JL,

Sometimes something appears so unorthodox, you have to take a look at it. I collect ideas, and combine them in interesting ways. So, I have lots of books. I don't know what use I'll make out of it, and I'm not sold on the play necessarily, but it's worth a look to me.

Also Newall discusses the role of introspection in his book Further Limit Hold'em, and relays his own experience on how he discarded ideas that he previously thought were "automatic". So, I shall waste my time on introspection.

You should always adjust for the specific situation. Usually in these large pots this has something to do with the type of players that you're against and is addressed in our book that you didn't read. Also, in this specific example, the player in the straddle can easily have any two cards since straddlers often will play no matter what.

If there's no bet on the flop and then a bet on the turn, you think players would then fold all these hands getting 11-to-1. Perhaps the underpair will fold but this conclusion seems highly doubtful relative to the other listed hands.

So a T7 hand, which is getting 11-to-1, has six outs to the nuts given we have two jacks, is a hand we successfully block out? And what about QJ? It has four outs to the nuts, a ten, and another four outs to a queen. So even though we block a jack, this hand is still getting 11-to-1 and has eight outs to beat us.

And what about a player who has five outs, an A8 would be an example. Getting 11-to-1 they'll call virtually every time. But getting something like 13-to-2, they'll often fold when looking at a raise.

While it's clearly best if the cutoff bets, if a different player bets and someone called between, you should still want to raise. The reason should be obvious.

Come-on. It's a large pot and it appears that no one wants it. Many players would bet with very little, and they certainly would bet many pairs that jacks beat.

Poker is a game based on probability, and probability means that there are no sure things. The purpose of these plays is to increase your probability of winning a large pot. It doesn't guarantee that the probability of winning is now 100 percent.

It's generally my policy not to announce that someone plays horrible. I much prefer to state the merits of the case and let our posters decide for themselves. In the statistical world of mathematical surveys, something I once was involved with, this is known as conditioning. So when you start by saying something like "This strategy is just horrible" it's actually an attempt to precondition others to your point of view without any explanation as to why you think your approach is best. I just thought our posters/readers should understand this tactic.

Mason

Mason, he provided a detailed explanation why he said checking the flop with JJ is horrible (it is). Don’t restate his position incorrectly then use that to argue against him. You might have to ban yourself for such actions.


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Lost in this discussion (maybe not now, I skimmed the thread) is the times hands like K4 no BDFD just folds the flop, but gets to hit one of the 3 cards that pulls it ahead of jacks because we decided to be tricky. This whole "protect your hand" thing goes both ways.

JL basically nails it. Even if you were going to try and execute this play, JJ is a bad hand choice for it. Not to mention if anyone folds a hand w/ over 4.5% equity on this board, they're making a FTOP error anyway (and FTR, a hand like T4s w/ BDFD will be getting the correct price to continue). So not only are we not denying people their share of equity w/ this line, but we are missing value. Why let 54s call a turned open ender when we can have it peel the flop, and then call the turned open ender?

Plus let's say the turn is a 3 and we get our wish and it checks to CO who bets, and we get to raise to protect our hand and our equity in the pot. So we get to get 2 bets into the pot from our opponents w/ 60% equity instead of like 5 bets w/ 50% or whatever we'd have on that turn card. So even the rosy scenario doesn't sound that great