JJ is hard to play!

[AnthonyH]

"I am OOP"

Bump it up pre-flop to make post-flop decisions easier. There's a good chance you down pre-flop and if not at least you drastically narrow his hand range down. Calling and running into a flop like you did with JJ OOP is even worse.

"facing a larger-than-usual raise from an unknown-ish player that I have just bet off a couple of hands."

The fact that you have blown him off the last few hands may mean he's getting frustrated. Regardless, JJ is ahead of even the nittiest players opening range. Raise for value.

"I am holding a medium strength hand with a player to act behind me"
Raise for isolation. Flat calling allows lower pairs and suited connectors in for cheap. Not what you want with JJ.

"It is a hand I want to continue with, but a hand I cannot call a 3 bet with"

Against a loose and aggressive player whom I've bet off a couple hands I wouldn't mind playing JJ for stacks.

[FeltBelt]

[ QUOTE ]
"I am OOP"

Bump it up pre-flop to make post-flop decisions easier. There's a good chance you down pre-flop and if not at least you drastically narrow his hand range down. Calling and running into a flop like you did with JJ OOP is even worse.

"facing a larger-than-usual raise from an unknown-ish player that I have just bet off a couple of hands."

The fact that you have blown him off the last few hands may mean he's getting frustrated. Regardless, JJ is ahead of even the nittiest players opening range. Raise for value.

"I am holding a medium strength hand with a player to act behind me"
Raise for isolation. Flat calling allows lower pairs and suited connectors in for cheap. Not what you want with JJ.

"It is a hand I want to continue with, but a hand I cannot call a 3 bet with"

Against a loose and aggressive player whom I've bet off a couple hands I wouldn't mind playing JJ for stacks.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is all really poor advice. First I don't know for sure that he's loose and aggressive.

Next, suited conns and lower pairs aren't coming in "cheap" because his raise is so substantial in the first place, and there is only the BB to act in any event (a TAG, fwiw).

Reraising preflop doesn't make any of my decisions easier postflop. It makes the pot bigger, though, and that's not good for my JJ in this spot. It also usually eliminates my ability to checkraise a helpful flop (as this one was).

JJ may be ahead of his range, but I want to see a flop here and I risk not being able to do that with a PF reraise.

I am *never* playing JJ for stacks PF unless I am against a certifiable nutjob. That's just silly.

[AnthonyH]

"This is all really poor advice."

Regardless of the validity of my advice, this attitude is not conducive to improvement. I told you what I would do on this hand. Is this not what you wanted in terms of discussion? I don't belive the line you took was a profitable one, and judging by the fact that you posted this hand for help, neither do you. I gave you the line I would take based on the reads you posted. Before we get into further discussion however, there is something that you need to hear.

All in all, I believe regardless of the outcome of this hand or the lines taken, you must change your attitude towards learning the game and realize that posters critcizing your play are not criticizing you as a person. Understand that no one is attacking you personally, and let your ego go. Only then will you be able to improve as a poker player. At the risk of sounding condescneding, good luck to you sir.

[Infotainment]

Felt it smells like you are up against QQ or TT to me. Just a feeling I have from seeing this situationa lot.

I'm curious of the results. My money is actually on QQ.

[FishSticks]

Felt,

I like your line until the turn. I feel the flop checkraise was made to get easy value out of whiffed overs, and allow you to safely c/f if it comes to playing for stacks. Have you checkraised flop in this situation often before? If not, once he flatcalls the flop bet I don't see reason to think he's folding on this turn card. Given that he knows how to fold, I don't think you're going to see a lot of stuff you beat turned up when he calls the turn, and I don't think you're pushing him off anything you're behind (given the brief history).

[yesplease]

if you plan on stacking off when undercard hit the flop (which is fine and reasonable given you uys are 110bb) then why are you 'never playing for stacks preflop' here? If he 4bets you preflop are you folding? if so, then wouldn't it be wiser to 3bet/fold preflop then to just call preflop and stack off on an underflop? either way you are never making QQ+ fold so atleast the 3bet will save a % of your stack.

as is, you are repping too few hands for any hand that beats you to fold. if you have 77/set, so be it as far as an overpair is concerned. your turn shove is less then a PSB and with a new found flush draw added i cant see an overpair ever folding getting 2-1 this shallow when he lose to only a handful of hands.

[Worm75]

Don't really have a problem with the smooth call preflop, you have forced this guy out of several pots, so a repop here he may get frustrated and 4 bet push and you have a hand that is very decent Preflop and would like to see a flop with.

That being said, the C/R on the flop is building a very big pot on a drawy board OOP. I think in this situation you are going to want to keep the pot as small as possible. Yes you may be able to stack him off if he has an overpair to the board, lower than your Jacks, but there are better situations than this to build a big pot.

I think that this is a situation where you are WA/WB and this push is spewey here.

[yesplease]

just to clarify.....

i am not saying you should be 3betting preflop here or calling. either or will do in the flow of your game and such. what i was saying though is that if you choose to just call with the reasoning that you will never felt JJ preflop then you obviously think there is a good chance he is raising with something that beats you. if that is the case then why you become ultra aggro postflop makes no sense with your preflop thinking. with these stacks, i am either looking to get the money in on the flop or try not to get all the money in at all without improvement. after he calls your c/r, are you still not convinced that he has a strong hand? if not, then why would $4 dollars more then the normal preflop raise suddenly sway you into the 'oh crap he must have a monster' camp?

[dirtysanchez]

[ QUOTE ]
what i was saying though is that if you choose to just call with the reasoning that you will never felt JJ preflop then you obviously think there is a good chance he is raising with something that beats you. if that is the case then why you become ultra aggro postflop makes no sense with your preflop thinking.

[/ QUOTE ]

no. the reasoning is that he folds a large portion of the hands that we beat to a 3-bet and he will show aggression with most of these hands on the flop if we flat-call pre. which lines up perfectly with the reasoning behind the flop play.

[yesplease]

dirtysanchez,

so you're saying that he is calling preflop in essence to induce a bluff out of a player who raises preflop and who will c-bet most of the time. yet we have no idea with his c-bet if we are ahead or behind and so a c/r is in order? hmmmm.....are you seeing any wholes in this logic?

if our motive preflop is to keep the pot smaller while inducing bluffs out of worse holdings then c/r'ing here is probably the exact opposite of what we should be doing. c/c'ing fits this line of thinking which is what i said to do if he took this preflop line.

also with JJ i think a large portion of your opponents raising hands here are of similiar value to ours and thus we shouldn't necessarily be afraid of folding out worse hands. AK/AQ/KQ all are raiing hands and we would not mind in the least folding thee out. and at these limits TT/99/88/maybe77 are all too often coming along for the 3bet ride anyways so we might as well get as much money in the pot now. don't confuse our holding with say KK/AA where we dominate everything and can afford the luxury of letting more hands catch up.

again though, i don't have a problem with either preflop line. it is postflop that he should stay consistant with his preflop decision since not enough information has been brought to light in defining his opponents hand in order to sway his actions postflop one way or the other.