Pocket Jacks. Advice on how to play them please

[EsandWhizz]

Iv just been stacked twice in the last two hours with pocket Jacks turning a 4 buyin winning session into 2 winning session. I have no stats but i know i lose money with this hand and its a leak i want to plug. I raise and reraise with them pre-flop and often push with them post flop if they are an overpair unless im up against a real tight player. Should i treat them as same as mid-pairs which are easier to get away from and play less aggressive pre-flop or should they be classed as a premiumn starting hand? Ideas on to play them please. Apologies for having no examples to display but im clueless with computers and dont know how to show hands iv played.

[Mike Gallo]

The search engine should become your friend.

Jacks get discussed about once a week.

A plethora of information awaits you.

Welcome aboard [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Scuba Chuck]

If you raise, and then reraise with them, what hands are going to call you? The answer to this question is all the info you need.

[EsandWhizz]

So your saying flat call with them and hope to make trips or reevaluate on the flop?

[ev_slave]

Raise, flat call the reraise. If specific reads come into play, this can change.

[Nsight7]

I myself tend to raise and flat-call re-raise. If I raise and only get a single call, I will mostly c-bet anything unless a read comes into play or I see two overcards on the flop. If you can get this heads-up with a raise pre-flop, the c-bet is very +EV. I might re-raise small raises from mid-position if I am in late (i.e. 2x's BB raise) and I might flat call, particularly if their are limpers and I don't think I can get it down to heads-up against somebody that limp-calls too often. Then I am hoping to hit a set or another unlikely hand and hope one of the other three players in the pot with me has enough of a hand to pay me off.

Also, there is almost no chance I get into a re-raising war with this and get it all-in preflop. Most hands that would get in preflop with you are going to beat you. This isn't always true of course, so this might be read dependant as well, but it is a good rule of thumb even as low as my stakes (i.e. about 50 NL)

But I am rambling. Like was mentioned earlier, there are plenty of threads on this (some of which probably contradict my post, hehe, but they probably play higher stakes than I).

[Rek]

JJ is like when you meet a girl down the pub. She looks great at the start, with your beer goggles on, but then you see her in the morning and think "why did I stay with you till the end"

[pzhon]

The following joke has more than a little truth to it: "It's easy to play JJ. Raise preflop, and then check-fold any flop."

JJ should be a winning hand for you, but it's not worth much more than the blinds or so in many NL games, maybe twice the blinds on average. Don't set your expectations too high, and don't be enthusiastic about playing a big pot with JJ unimproved.

It's definitely a good idea to raise in middle or late position. Whether you limp with JJ or raise in early position is marginal.

Don't panic when there is an overcard on the board, but don't give a lot of action, either. Regardless of whether there is an overcard, you usually you want to keep the pot small, so that you are getting value from weaker hands.

[Seany Gee]

i played with a guy in a live game once who said this after loosing a substantial pot with JJ

"there are 3 ways to play pocket jacks! and they are all wrong!"

i thought it was gold!