Set of Jacks against open ended straight draw

[jacks321]

Button will play any connecting cards, suited or not every time regardless of the action. From his flop call, I assumed he had flopped an open-ended straight draw. When the safe turn card came I decided to make a big bet, figuring that if he called it was for value and if he didn't I still take down a nice pot. I actually meant to push here but read the screen wrong - although from what I've seen of this player the extra $200 wouldn't have made a difference in his decision. What would be a better strategy against this type of player? Should I have pushed on the flop? When he bet on the river, should I have folded? Any advice on how I could have played this better would be greatly appreciated.

***** Hand History for Game 1362656206 *****
NL Hold'em Trny:8239526 Level:4 Blinds (25/50) - Wednesday, December 29, 09:56:04 EDT 2004
Table Multi-Table(189886) Table #2 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 9

Seat 3: UTG ( $390 )
Seat 4: UTG+1 ( $4250 )
Seat 5: Hero ( $1715 )
Seat 6: MP2 ( $2445 )
Seat 7: MP3 ( $1820 )
Seat 9: Button ( $1875 )
Seat 8: CO ( $3005 )
Seat 1: SB ( $1945 )
Seat 2: BB ( $675 )
Trny:8239526 Level:4
Blinds (25/50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to jacks321 [ Jd Jh ]
UTG folds.
UTG+1 folds.
Hero raises [100].
MP2 folds.
MP3 folds.
CO calls [100].
Button calls [100].
SB folds.
BB calls [50].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qh, 9d, Js ]
BB checks.
Hero bets [425].
CO folds.
Button calls [425].
BB folds.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5d ]
Hero bets [1000].
Button calls [1000].
** Dealing River ** [ 8h ]
Hero checks.
Button bets [150].
Hero calls [150].
Button shows [ 9s, Td ] a straight, eight to queen.
Hero doesn't show [ Jd, Jh ] three of a kind, jacks.
Button wins 3575 chips from the main pot with a straight, eight to queen.

[Sam T.]

Hey Jacks,

First, I don't much like the min-raise with JJ. This is not a hand that likes a lot of company, and all your doing is giving players in LP the pot odds to come along. I think pushing would be a mistake, but you need to make a real raise, and you might not have to worry about this kind of situation.

In any case, remember that you WANT this guy to come along for the ride so long as you are charging him for the privilege. On the flop and the turn, you gave him terrible odds to call (2:1 on the turn and 2.2:1 on the river), and he did it anyway. That's great, because the majority of the time, he will finish the hand with his pair of nines, and you will finish it with all his chips.

As for the call on the river, I don't know. He probably made his straight, but I would imagine that it could also mean that he made two-pair or a set of eights. At this point the pot odds say you've gotta call.

[Avgard]

I agree with Sam.

More agressive pre-flop, after that you made it expensive to outdraw you. Some hands a just going to lose no matter what you do.

The villain was getting a little over 2 to 1 on a 4.5 to 1 draw. You love these type of players (at least 4.5 times out of 5.5). /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[jacks321]

I definitely agree with you that the min-raise was a mistake. I typically would raise more than that with this hand - I was trying something a little different and it backfired on me. I've been playing a lot of tournaments lately and having mediocre success - one 2nd place, one 7th and 2 barely in the money out of about 20 tournaments, so I've won about $800 and spent about $500 in entry fees.

The thing that's giving me the most trouble is dealing with the fact that one bad beat or poorly played hand can put me out of the tournament completely so the focus and consistency is much more important than in ring games where a poorly played hand will cost me a few bets and bit of pride. This also tends to put me on tilt when I take a hit like this but am not knocked out of the tournament which was never an issue for me in ring games. I've been reading nearly every post on this forum and have learned a lot over the last month or so. I also picked up Reuben and Ciaffone's book and it's slowly making more sense.

Is there any good no-limit tourney reading you can recommend? I could definitely learn more on the psychology of no-limit tourneys as well as general raising/calling standards.

[zaxx19]

Im seriously not trying to be obnoxious here but what were you trying to do here with such a vulnerable but valuable hand preflop?? I mean if you are playing for set values just smooth call here. The pot would be huge and multi way so you are almost guaranteed to get paid...not saying it is correct to play for set value here just making a point.

[jacks321]

[ QUOTE ]
Im seriously not trying to be obnoxious here but what were you trying to do here with such a vulnerable but valuable hand preflop??

[/ QUOTE ]

I hate to admit it but it was a mis-remembered post here about mixing up your standard raise that made me think the min-raise was a good idea. The post talked about varying it up between 3-5 BB, i remembered it as 2-4. Oops! /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[Al Mirpuri]

You push on the turn. You welcome his call as he is taking the worst of it. He got lucky.