Badly played JJ?

[rkiray]

I was rereading HPFAP a couple of days ago taking notes on where I could improve my game. The section on JJ was interesting. I did not realize that it was so important that JJ not be against 3 or 4 opponents, so they recommend R in tight games just call in loose game. I've only played about 10 hands in a UB 3/6 game but it appears loose. UTG I find JJ. Since this is one of the things I'm trying to work on, I thought this was an important hand but I played it terribly. I just called anticipating 5 or 6 opponents. EP limps, MP Raises (uh-oh), button cold calls, BB calls. Looks like I'm going to have exactly 4 opponents, so I desperetly RR since my only chance is to eliminate people. EP calls, MP caps it, button calls, BB folds. I end up with three opponents. Flop 9A6r. I bet trying to represent As and hoping the other Rer had KK or QQ. Everyone calls. Turn is a 5. I fire one more time. EP calls, MP folds (yeah), Button RR (i'm doomed). Me and EP call. River is a 6. I check EP checks Button bets. I fold, EP calls. Button wins with an A7o which he called for two bets preflop. I think I played this very badly. I guess a little knowledge can do a lot of harm. Any comments?

[Bob T.]

The thing about that advice is, is that once you get to online 3-6, is that the games are rarely as loose as the loose games that are being discussed in that section. If you raised UTG, do you really expect that 3 more players are going to enter the pot? I would raise preflop with that hand every time, you probably lose in this case anyway. Because it seems like the button is probably an 'Any Ace Any Price' kind of player.

Once the hand is raised behind you, I think that you should call preflop, and then decide what to do after the flop. By reraising, you got yourself tied to the pot, in a bad situation.

On the hand in question, I think that you should be pretty concerned about how good your hand is. There is an ace on the board with a preflop raiser, and a cold caller behind. I think that you probably want to play this hand as cheaply after the flop as you can. That probably includes folding.

[rkiray]

Yeah, I definitely misplayed this hand. The funny thing is if I hadn't recently reviewed that section of HPFAP I would have definitely raised. Oh well I guess I need to work on the material more. The funny thing is I took notes on nine areas to improve on, and only one of them seems to be working very well. Either I don't fully understand the material, or I had adapted my game to low-limit on-line and these ideas don't really apply to those games. Perhaps I will post the notes here and see if people think they apply to low-limit online. The one idea that is working is that I was overvaluing hands like KTo and QTo. I had also noticed in my database that these are two of the hands that I lost the most money with. So I was already being much more cautious with them.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Yep. You played bad. Continuing after the flop was where you played bad. With three opponents, you're almost certainly going to be beat on that flop. You should have laid it down. But of course you knew that. I think your actions before the flop indicated that you did in fact understand the section of the book you had just read. A limp-reraise might have thinned the field, but even if it didn't it's an OK way to mix up your play a bit. However, I think that you shouldn't worry quite so much about that particular section of the book. Once you limped, eh.. so you wound up with exactly four opponents. Not really much you could do, you made what seemed like the best play at the time, but just got unlucky that exactly four called. Sometimes I limp in a loose game early with a small pair and only get two or three instead of the preferred five. It happens. Just don't unneccessarily put more money into the pot just because the loose players didn't cooperate.

al

[rkiray]

You are exactly correct. The part of the hand I'm unhappy with is after the flop. I should have check-folded when the ace hit. Normally I would have. I think I was distracted that my new concept seemed to have backfired and this temporialy distracted me. Plus when the preflop Raiser just called I got my hopes up too high. All in all not one of my better hands.