Jacks or Queens after a single raise

[StuartHopkin]

Your in late position or the blinds, theyre is a single raise to roughly 3 x BB, you look down and see JJ or QQ, your medium stacked, the raiser has you covered, any players to follow you suspect are folding.

Do you;

a) Re-raise all in hoping he will call
b) Flat call giving you a chance to see the flop and reassess

2 out of the last three weeks in my favourite tournament (£20 + 2 rebuys, 90ish runners £4500 prize pool) Ive gone out in this situation.

Ive pushed, theyve shown two over cards and have hit the A on the turn or river.

Last night i couldnt help wondering wether I should be just calling, in both cases I could have pushed after the flop showed 3 undercards and they should fold (in theory) If they call with 2 over cards at least i got my chips in when i was 85% rather than 52%. By getting all my chips in he is guaranteed all 5 cards to possibly hit.

Alternatively if overcards come on the flop it gives me the chance to get away and remain in the tournament if i think they have hit. (Obviously this may not work sometimes)

Any thoughts on this situation would be good, i think ive over complicated it a bit now in my head by trying to work out the probablities of the flop showing under and over cards, and the probablities of them having overcards, being dominated and having underpairs that a low board turns into a set!!!!!!

[kinboshi]

I want him to be making a mistake (and me not to be making a play that is a mistake).

With JJ, an overcard is going to fall 67% of the time (I think, but I might be wrong) on the flop.  So, calling with JJ means that you"re going to be worried about over-cards most of the time, but of course, not necessarily cards that help your opponent.

In cash games I tend to treat them as a medium pair - and I"m set-mining or hoping for a very favourable flop.

In tournaments, you need to make the most from these premium hands.  I tend to re-raise here (dependent on stack sizes, blinds, etc.), but I also need to be able to get away from the hand on the flop rather than losing my whole stack.

Difficult hands - as is AK.

[smileriraq]

 generally play low stakes SNG and Cash games $5.50 and.05/.10 but i do usually make a profit at the end of the month so Bear that in mind when reading my answer as the level i play at may not be suited to the level your playing at.
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it all boils down to what has happened previously in the tournament , whether he is tight or loose if its early in the tournament or late, is there anyone else to act behind you

If you read the 2nd volume of harrington on holdem theres a pretty good section on what he calls "M" which could also factor your decision

If you call youve got position on him if you reraise all in you lose that advantage that said a reraise may get him to fold AK or AQ. If you just call and a rag flop comes what are you prepared to do if he goes all in

TBH I dont get into second guessing my decisons much as whilst you may get outrdrawn in the long run your probably likely to win that hand more often than not.

In your case you said he showed two overcards which is your basic "Race" situation sometimes you win sometimes you lose but during the game ill be trying to build up a profile on a player and that will play the bigger part on my decision rather thant what cards ive got

[swordfish]

Position is important here.  I dont want to play any of those hands out of position, so if I"m in the blinds, I like a re-raise here.  From the button then a call is a decent proposition too, to evaluate after the flop.

[hi_am_chris]

Impossible question to answer due to the information given, what is your stack size, what are the other players stack sizes, how many players are left, what are the blinds, how active/aggressive has the player been amd also how much more is it for him to call, is he committed or do you have fold equity. I mainly play 1 table sit n gos so usually in those im reraising here but if its early ill still have enough to fold shud they then come back over the top, if they flat call the reraise then ive got the lead when the flop comes down.

[AMRN]

Has this exact scenario in the Welsh Open.  blinds 100/200 and had around 10k in chips. Middle position (also 10k chips) open raised to 600. all folded to me in BB and I found JJ. reraised to 2400. original raiser thought for about a minute then shoved...... JJ went into the much face up and he showed QQ.

When it came to me, I couldn"t flat call as would have to play the flop out of position. Considered a min raise, but he would be committed to call regardless of his cards and i would have no idea where I was. All in was daft as he might have AA/KK and there was not enough value in the pot to risk such an audacious move. So made a strong raise to find out just how strong his hand really was, but not too much to commit me to the pot - knew I would fold if he came back over the top.

Agree with Dan - even though Jacks are painted, they are nothing more than a weak middle pair.

[StuartHopkin]

Lol, impossible question to answer! Why did you try then?

Its a concept question, the situation arises lots, i was asking for other peoples experiences and thoughts on the situation!

[linziwan]

 

Impossible question to answer due to the information given, what is your stack size, what are the other players stack sizes, how many players are left, what are the blinds, how active/aggressive has the player been amd also how much more is it for him to call, is he committed or do you have fold equity. I mainly play 1 table sit n gos so usually in those im reraising here but if its early ill still have enough to fold shud they then come back over the top, if they flat call the reraise then ive got the lead when the flop comes down.

Stuart, when they said it was an impossible question to ask is because a lot more information would be nice before an opinion can be given.  There are a lot of different scenarios that can be played out with JJ or QQ depending on your chip stack, players at the tables etc etc etc.  You say you have a medium stake but what is the blind level and do you have more or less than 10 BBs?

Give us more info for a more informed answer.  

[George2Loose]

fold pre flop FTW

[hi_am_chris]

The situation does arise a lot but depending on other factors the hand could played differently, by the sound of it you were committing too much of your stack to just make a standard reraise so in your situation i think im pushing but theres so many other things that need to be taken into account in any situation.

[evilpie]

Me and Stuart have been discussing these hands a lot recently and trying to figure out the best way to play them. I think Stuart possibly gave too much information and gave the impression it was one specific hand that he wanted analysing. It wasn"t.

Like he said it"s a concept question regardless of stacks, blinds, player characteristics etc. sometimes you can do too much analysing on a hand and forget that it"s a simple case of jacks or queens against the rest of the world.... who wins?? We"re amateurs, there"s no need to overcomplicate everything.

The main point is that someone has already raised and you now have to decide whether to fold, call or raise.

If you fold then you"re out of it nice and safe but you"ve maybe wasted a premium hand. Bad idea IMO

If you raise you"re only going to get called by a monster (usually) so you won"t know where you are after the flop, maybe an over pair? If they fold you have maybe not maximised the profit you could have made. If they push you have committed more chips than necessary in to a hand that you probably have to lay down.

If you call at least it"s your oponent who doesn"t know where they are after the flop because they could put you a bigger range. I would probably put them on a decent ace or any pair for the 3 x raise, including premium pairs (comments welcome). With a low flop if they are on an ace with a kicker your push should see them fold. The only hands you are going to lose to are an over pair or trips. There is also the possibility of you hitting trips yourself which would be nice

So simply speaking, a pre flop call means that the only hands beating you with an undercard board are an over pair or a lucky set which are not too many hands. Pre flop there are many more hands that either beat or equal you (percentage wise). I guess it"s all about getting rid of the possibility of overcards pairing and beating you for a big pot.

So what we want to know is GENERALLY SPEAKING what are you looking to do with JJ or QQ (even KK I suppose) following a 3 x raise? - fold, call, reraise or push?? Everyone must have done all of these many times in the past and have noticed one working out better over the months / years so which is it for you??

[hi_am_chris]

if you call and the flop comes rags you can stack someone with 99 88 TT but equally in a lot of situations they may call a reraise anyways, i prefer to reraise as you find out more about their hand then if you just call. I dont think folding is an option unless its a sattelite to just one raise but the rest of the plays all have their merits although id rather be trapping with kings and sometimes queens than jacks

[GiMac]

tbh there is a MASSIVE difference between JJ and QQ, so I would probably play both differently. JJ I treat like others have said like a medium pair. QQ on the other hand is a premium hand in my book, after all only two hands actually beating it pre flop and only coin flipping with one hand!!! You cant possibly play Jacks and Queens the same way.  

[evilpie]

tbh there is a MASSIVE difference between JJ and QQ, so I would probably play both differently. JJ I treat like others have said like a medium pair. QQ on the other hand is a premium hand in my book, after all only two hands actually beating it pre flop and only coin flipping with one hand!!! You cant possibly play Jacks and Queens the same way.  

Agree with you here but it"s still the same concept. Do you want all your chips in pre flop with QQ or would you rather flat call and see if any overs come on the flop?

If there are no over cards then there"s no coin flip out there just the possibility of over pairs or the lucky trips.

I"d be interested to know the odds against seeing overcards with JJ or QQ. What"s the difference? and is it a big enough difference to make JJ a middle pair and QQ a premium hand?

PS. No matter what the odds are I still agree. I would be much happier pushing with QQ than JJ. Not trying to create an argument, just curious

[kinboshi]

So what we want to know is GENERALLY SPEAKING what are you looking to do with JJ or QQ (even KK I suppose) following a 3 x raise? - fold, call, reraise or push?? Everyone must have done all of these many times in the past and have noticed one working out better over the months / years so which is it for you??

Poker IS a situational game.  It"s not chess, where given a position there is a right and a wrong way to play - and that"s that.

How you play a hand changes according to all sorts of things - stack sizes (you, your opponent, others left in the tournament), blinds (if you have 200xBB you can play JJ a lot differently to if you have 20xBB  or 10xBB in your stack), state of the tournament (how big are others" stacks, how many players remaining, etc.), your opponent"s range, your opponent"s style.

So what might be a +EV move at one stage of a tournament, is the wrong thing to do at another time in the same tournament (or even the same time in a different tournament).