09- 8-05, LearnTexasHoldem:
Did I Play My Pocket Jacks Wrong?
I was in a rounders tournament. Buy in 5 $ in the first level. The top two players move on to the next level. First price in level 5 is 3000 $.
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I was dealt JJ on the button, chip leader ( small blind )starts by double the big blind. Big blind folds and now its up to me. My first thought is to go all in but if he calls and I loose i'm out and have to start over from level one again. So I double his bet up to 1.200. He then doubles my bet up to 2.400. Now i'm thinking of going all in again, but I'm sure he's got AK or AQs and if he calls it'll be a 50 / 50 situation so I just call. If the flop comes with any face cards I can just fold and still have 5.600 left. Flop comes 2 4 10 rainbow and he checks it to me. Now I'm sure he has got AK so go all in. He calls immediately and to my surprise he's got QQ. Of course no Jack on the turn or river so I was out.
If this was a regular tournament I would have gon all in preflop but since this was a rounders of tournament I did not want to loose all my chips when there was a third player with very little stack. But in the end I did loose them all anyway.
Please let me know what you would have done. All in or maybe even fold when he did double my bet preflop?
Thanks!
/ Mathis
Answer: You played the hand like a champ. Granted you lost, but some hands you can't help but lose. There is no other way around it; no matter how you play it you lose. The pot is already so large that if the money didn't go in on the first bet, it would have certainly gone in after.
The lesson the readers can learn from this hand is that going all-in preflop with middle pocket pairs isn't always the best way to play them if you know that you'll get called. By the way the preflop betting went, Mathis correctly put the opponent on at least two cards above JJ -- most likely AK or AQ. Now, had he gone all-in preflop, the opponent most likely would have called. AK or AQ (or any other overcards) are about a 50/50 to the river against JJ.
Instead of putting all of the money in preflop, the better way to play the hand was like he did. He called, then after the flop had no over cards (primarily an A or K), he went all-in. Notice the difference. The JJ would certainly get called by the AK for all the money, making it a coin flip. By seeing the flop first he now either can fold and keep 5600 or he can go all-in and force the opponent out or to call with a hand with only 6 outs.
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