pocket Jacks are of the devil <rant>

[pman5412]

the wife and i were at  our monthly poker club tourney this weekend. and i have to admit, i couldn't have played better. ... exept for the the fact that, all of this within 15 hands, i got pocket Jacks in 4 different hands and got my bottom handed to me 4 different times. went from big chip leader to bubble boy quick.
hands turned out
1.  JJ vs KQ  ...  KQ (short stacked and all-in) rvrs a straight to my set
2.  JJ vs QQ  ... yes i doubled another short stack
3.  JJ vs AQ  ... doubled yet another short stack up with them catching a queen on the turn.
4.  JJ vs 99   ... out to a set of 9s

On the good side, i left before the cash game ( can only imagine how much i could have lost there in the state of mind i was in.

[RagingAZN]

Well, you could always fold em

But I don't think you're gonna play them any different. I assume you got all of the money in preflop with these hands?

[pman5412]

unfortunately yes

[Detroitdad]

I need to take a lesson from this.

Nice decision on not playing the cash game. Two weeks I ago I bubbled in a 20 man $40 tourney. Even though I wasn't in Cash game mode, I stayed and played. Lost two buy ins.

Nice job.

Whats the saying for Jacks? Three ways to play them, their all wrong

[hachkc]

Whats the saying for Jacks? Three ways to play them, their all wrong

Also

Jacks, can't win with them, can't fold'em, can't beat'em

[TuMaK]

i hate jacks officially thanks to your thread and the other night when i was on stars.

was in a HU match. Woke up with pocket JJ twice throughout the match., was happy till the river of both hands where I found my opponent had pocket QQ's....... both times.

[fatbadger2]

what are the odds of catching J-J 4 times in 1 game anyway.i think the poker gods got involved there.THIS GAME IS RIGGED!

[troysteelerfan]

This pretty much sums it up.....enjoy!  note - some of the language may be offensive - mods if you need to get rid of this post - feel free - but, I think it's hilarious none-the-less
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/kP9CBtSW0kA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/kP9CBtSW0kA</a>

[NotFadeAway]

This pretty much sums it up.....enjoy!  note - some of the language may be offensive - mods if you need to get rid of this post - feel free - but, I think it's hilarious none-the-less
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/kP9CBtSW0kA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/kP9CBtSW0kA</a>

Very funny video.  Thanks for posting it. 

[luckystraights]

Maybe its the stakes I play, my style or the format I play, but I hold no animosity to pocket jacks, even though I have recently found out I've been playing them wrong.

When I see them as my hole cards, I'm as happy as I get to see AK, 55, QQ, (maybe not as much as seeing KK-AA), I like the buzz of picking up a hand I can play... though when I play with a 21 vpip that's actually rather a lot of hands lol.

EDIT... hate to be a kill joy but JJ is actually my 4th most profitable hand over my 45k hand sample (total sample not of JJ hands obviously). The flip is that in tournaments it is my 3rd biggest looser (though hand for hand still profitable, having my 13th highest BB/hand win rate) over a much smaller sample.

[pman5412]

Jacks killed me again! At P*  as well . in a $20 S&G and on the bubble... raised with my jacks about 6X BB.  1 person pushes everyone but me folds.  we flip ... he has pocket 4s. flop was a blank.. YAY!!! ... with a four on the turn ... and get this, another 4 on the river. I quit ... until maybe next week

[TuMaK]

heh nice video, thats totally liek me, I try to switch up the jacks every time and it always fails.

[Mortalpawn]

When you have pocket Jacks the odds are 1:8 that someone has a higher pocket pair, but more importantly you are going to see a Queen or higher on the flop 72% of the time making your post flop play a dicey proposition unless you hit a set (which is about 1 in 8 hands).  Further anyone who is likely to call a large raise pre-flop or go all-in against your Jacks likely has two big cards, in which case you are looking at a race situation with about a 54-46 edge for you.

Obviously you did the best you could possibly do by going all in with the best hand on 3 of your 4 plays (all except the queens).  You were near a race on two of the hands, a big 4:1 dog against the queens and a 4:1 favorite over the 99's.

The odds of losing all of them in a row is somewhere in the 3% range, but that's poker...All you can do is try to get your money in the pot with the best hand each time - bad beats are unfortunately part of the game.

Love the video though!

Doc

[kyler]

Jacks are a dangerous hand to get because normally you are slightly better than coin flip at best. When ever you look down at jacks it is best to get your money in the pot before the flop. In early position you never want to limp. A substantial raise from early position I believe is the correct move, you want to narrow the field down as much as possible. In mid position I would give the same advice. When facing a raise proflop with pocket jacks I don't believe a call should ever be an option. Depending on the player and position of the raise the correct move in my opinion would either be to fold or to re-raise all in. I am perfectly happy taking down a smaller pot by being aggressive pre-flop with this type of hand. Otherwise, it seems that they will always cost you most if not all of your chips. My goal, with jacks is to get all my chips in the pot pre flop (unless I put a player on an over pair).

[NotFadeAway]

Jacks are a dangerous hand to get because normally you are slightly better than coin flip at best. When ever you look down at jacks it is best to get your money in the pot before the flop. In early position you never want to limp. A substantial raise from early position I believe is the correct move, you want to narrow the field down as much as possible. In mid position I would give the same advice. When facing a raise proflop with pocket jacks I don't believe a call should ever be an option. Depending on the player and position of the raise the correct move in my opinion would either be to fold or to re-raise all in. I am perfectly happy taking down a smaller pot by being aggressive pre-flop with this type of hand. Otherwise, it seems that they will always cost you most if not all of your chips. My goal, with jacks is to get all my chips in the pot pre flop (unless I put a player on an over pair).

I very much disagree with part of this.  You say to ALWAYS fold or shove, but that's impractical often.  What if you're deep?  What about spots where you think you're beat, but you have the price to set mine?
Also, if you think that it's a flip at best, and the flop action will tell you where you stand, flatting preflop could certainly be best.  Obviously, it depends on many factors, though.

[kyler]

I very much disagree with part of this.  You say to ALWAYS fold or shove, but that's impractical often.  What if you're deep?  What about spots where you think you're beat, but you have the price to set mine?
Also, if you think that it's a flip at best, and the flop action will tell you where you stand, flatting preflop could certainly be best.  Obviously, it depends on many factors, though.

Obviously there is more factors than I could ever address, and I don't believe that it is ALWAYS all in or fold. But for general strategy this is what I believe. Unless you are up against pocket Aces, Kings, Or queens. you are at least a 54% (2 suited over cards) favorite and it would be best to put a tough decision on your opponent before you are pot committed. If you let your self get pot committed and an over card comes with a flush draw, then your are going to get dragged along with a busted hand. If your are the deep stack I think this applies even more, especially if you have an aggressive table image. The deep stack automatically gets the image of a bully to a lot of players, which makes it more likely that you will get a call from a weaker hand such as king 10. Then it's a 3 outer (assuming no extra outs come on the board) to get you that much closer to a victory,

[midwest]

jacks kill me in my cash games.... ALWAYS!

Last Friday.... Late in the evening... J/J.... Flop comes   5/2/J  Rainbow board.  4 players out of 9.... called $12....  my raise pre-flop in a $1/$2 game.  Checks around to me... I was running pretty well so far that night and I was getting the feeling they were sick of folding to me so I thought... why slow play them?  $25 bet... 2 callers.  Turn comes an innocent 10....   $50 bet....  1 caller!  River is a 2.....   And I bet BET INTO... an ALL IN for $220!

Now the guy is loose... and I had him on a failed A/K that never hit... an outright bluff.... and then as I walked it through... it hit me.... a suited 3/4! 

REALLY?  Did he really?  Thats a long way to go.... but I called the prick... and I as right!

I hate J/J!

[luckystraights]

Poker is a post flop game outside of short stack tournament play at least, and it should be your focus when playing cash games. Just because an over card flops doesn't mean you have to give up. Learn to play your range, and with experience your opponents range not just your hand.

When you raise pre with JJ and you see an A92 rainbow flop, you should be ecstatic because it hits your raising range and unless your facing an any ace player or 4 callers it doesn't hit much of a typical opponents calling range, this is a perfect board to bet so bet and play poker on the turn.

I've just had my database analyzed and I'm +EV with JJ over a sample of close to 60k hands, and get this... I am leaking money with JJ my win rate is below what is standard, yet playing JJ is most definitly contributing to my bankrolls growth. If anyone hates JJ this much and it really is loosing you money you are playing this particular hand wrong and more then likely have more general leaks in your game.

[luckystraights]

Jacks are a dangerous hand to get because normally you are slightly better than coin flip at best. When ever you look down at jacks it is best to get your money in the pot before the flop. In early position you never want to limp. A substantial raise from early position I believe is the correct move, you want to narrow the field down as much as possible. In mid position I would give the same advice. When facing a raise proflop with pocket jacks I don't believe a call should ever be an option. Depending on the player and position of the raise the correct move in my opinion would either be to fold or to re-raise all in. I am perfectly happy taking down a smaller pot by being aggressive pre-flop with this type of hand. Otherwise, it seems that they will always cost you most if not all of your chips. My goal, with jacks is to get all my chips in the pot pre flop (unless I put a player on an over pair).

LOL, is this a joke, your strategy is a million miles off, the exact opposite of this approach (in cash games) is far more closer to optimal. When you shove over with JJ you certainly will pick up lots of small pots, but you will NEVER pick them up often enough to even break even when you are called, this is a sure way to go broke. What you should be doing is analzying your opponents range and flatting with postion pre instead, this allows you a greater chance at controlling the pot size, some deception allowing you to extract from a weaker range like 99 or TT and you get to see a flop allowing you to flop a set and stack QQ+ and maybe TPTK. If your playing against a total maniac or a fish then you should hapilly re-raise, but you should be re-raising for value, and an amount that will get you a called by hands you beat, you don't want to raise out everything you beat but AK.

As for making a huge raise in EP/MP with JJ, unless your also doing this with KK, AK, etc thinking players will pick up on this quick. If your making a big raise pre but folding a lot to large re-raises (also a mistake) figuring they must have at least AK, then you'll get players flatting your big raises to put you in tougher spots when they have position with KK+

[luckystraights]

I very much disagree with part of this.  You say to ALWAYS fold or shove, but that's impractical often.  What if you're deep?  What about spots where you think you're beat, but you have the price to set mine?
Also, if you think that it's a flip at best, and the flop action will tell you where you stand, flatting preflop could certainly be best.  Obviously, it depends on many factors, though.

Obviously there is more factors than I could ever address, and I don't believe that it is ALWAYS all in or fold. But for general strategy this is what I believe. Unless you are up against pocket Aces, Kings, Or queens. you are at least a 54% (2 suited over cards) favorite and it would be best to put a tough decision on your opponent before you are pot committed. If you let your self get pot committed and an over card comes with a flush draw, then your are going to get dragged along with a busted hand. If your are the deep stack I think this applies even more, especially if you have an aggressive table image. The deep stack automatically gets the image of a bully to a lot of players, which makes it more likely that you will get a call from a weaker hand such as king 10. Then it's a 3 outer (assuming no extra outs come on the board) to get you that much closer to a victory,

You play tournaments right?, IMO taking this approach outside of loose games at 2nl or 5nl will get you killed.

[NotFadeAway]

Jacks are a dangerous hand to get because normally you are slightly better than coin flip at best. When ever you look down at jacks it is best to get your money in the pot before the flop. In early position you never want to limp. A substantial raise from early position I believe is the correct move, you want to narrow the field down as much as possible. In mid position I would give the same advice. When facing a raise proflop with pocket jacks I don't believe a call should ever be an option. Depending on the player and position of the raise the correct move in my opinion would either be to fold or to re-raise all in. I am perfectly happy taking down a smaller pot by being aggressive pre-flop with this type of hand. Otherwise, it seems that they will always cost you most if not all of your chips. My goal, with jacks is to get all my chips in the pot pre flop (unless I put a player on an over pair).

LOL, is this a joke, your strategy is a million miles off, the exact opposite of this approach (in cash games) is far more closer to optimal. When you shove over with JJ you certainly will pick up lots of small pots, but you will NEVER pick them up often enough to even break even when you are called, this is a sure way to go broke. What you should be doing is analzying your opponents range and flatting with postion pre instead, this allows you a greater chance at controlling the pot size, some deception allowing you to extract from a weaker range like 99 or TT and you get to see a flop allowing you to flop a set and stack QQ+ and maybe TPTK. If your playing against a total maniac or a fish then you should hapilly re-raise, but you should be re-raising for value, and an amount that will get you a called by hands you beat, you don't want to raise out everything you beat but AK.

As for making a huge raise in EP/MP with JJ, unless your also doing this with KK, AK, etc thinking players will pick up on this quick. If your making a big raise pre but folding a lot to large re-raises (also a mistake) figuring they must have at least AK, then you'll get players flatting your big raises to put you in tougher spots when they have position with KK+

I agree very much lucky.  I was just being nicer with my post...
You're obviously right, though.  A 'shove or fold' strategy every time you pick up JJ is the epitome of simplistic, mindless poker.

[kyler]

There are three ways to play jacks and they are all wrong. Of course people disagree with me. And by no means am I saying that it is an always all in or fold. this simply works itself into my style of play. I have an aggressive table image and can bet with anything. This strategy is not for everybody nor do i always use it. As I said there are to many factors to address. You have to take into account the play of other people at the table, your table image, chip stacks, position etc.

[Detroitdad]

I've adapted a new strategy with Pocket J's. Always FOLD them. No matter your position, chip stacks, image, ect.....

[kyler]

I've adapted a new strategy with Pocket J's. Always FOLD them. No matter your position, chip stacks, image, ect.....

That's probably the smartest strategy.

[pman5412]

i will second that