Archive Pick: Jacks in the small blind facing two raises, no limit cash live

Game type: 2/5 no limit cash game, live
Your image: You just ran a significant but unsuccessful bluff last hand
Opponent’s image: The straddler is clearly frustrated and Player B seems pretty loose.
Your hand: J♦J♣

This quiz is taken from our archives and originally ran on 6-26-07. View the original quiz, answer and comments here.

The setup: You’ve been pretty aggressive in this no limit cash session, and last hand you ran a fairly massive bluff against Player B only to get caught on the river.

This hand, UTG straddles for $10 and Player B makes it $30. The table folds to you and you call. Then the BB folds and the straddle makes it $110 to go. The original raiser thinks a little bit and then quietly calls. You’ve seen player B open for 30 with Q8 suited, and the straddler has been making a lot of calls and losing a lot of pots, rebuying short about 3 times in the last hour.

There’s over $250 in the middle and you look a little frustrated. What’s your play with JJ in the SB?

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7 COMMENTS (Jump to comment form)

DHQ Staff

What we said then…

I think the right play here is to call. You’re getting better than 3-1 to call, which is a fine price to take off a flop. The two big questions that come up once you decide to call are: how are you going to handle the flop and why didn’t you raise instead?

I think raising is a losing play here. The problem is that to isolate the short stack, who you may very well be ahead of, you’re going to have to raise a pretty large amount – more than you want to commit in the case that Player B has a real hand. It’s going to take over $300 to do it correctly, as anything less will offer a pretty decent price to Player B if Player A calls.

On the flop, you’ll actually be in pretty decent shape checking 100% of the time. The short stack has enough left to give you all of the information you need about Player B’s hand if they bet – if Player B folds and the flop is Q high or less, you can probably feel ok about calling. If Player B calls you’re probably done with the hand on just about all flops. If Player A checks and Player B bets, you can make a decision based on the flop and your read.

[Reply]

OnlinePokerIncome.com

The only real choices are shove, fold, or call. Given the situational details I can’t see anything wrong with any of those three choices.

However I voted call because player B has 680 left in his stack and given the existing pot size, it’s not a bad place to try and flop a set – and since rags also give you a good flop calling is quite attractive. If even one overcard flops I’m giving it up.

[Reply]

Sted Ruckus

I voted push here. Although I agree with the analysis completely, there is one more factor here. Jacks = death. I would just as soon race it out, and avoid yet another jacks induced ulcer. The quick heart attack is much easier to take.

[Reply]

Chad Gerson

Understand the analysis and OPI, there’s nothing wrong with what they said, but I have to agree with Sted here. Shove to isolate the short stack. No way you want to play JJ against 2 players. Sure if you flop a set you’re golden, but that’s only 1 in 8 whereas an overcard on the flop is 1 in 2.

[Reply]

Steve

I voted call. I’d expect player A to shove no matter what, and if you flop an overpair then im check/calling.

In fact if player B folds, then it’s probably ok to call irregardless of the texture of the flop since your read implies that player A is on tilt and would be doing this sort of thing with low suited connectors, or even rag-nothing, and you’ll be paying $210 for a chance to win $485.

[Reply]

DRoss

Calling is verrrrrry weak. Shove FTW.

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teddy

i voted call too but i saw joe hashem fold JJ in a similar situation stating “jacks just arent that strong”

[Reply]