Mason: JJ #1 ?

To continue the JJ thread from the interesting post below:


Mason; I think a lot of us do have trouble viewing JJ as a group 1 hand. It is a real suicide hand in tournaments. But even in live games, how can it be classed alongside AA and KK?

So many times you're opponent has two overcards or a better pair.


When it trips it's great, but how much greater than trip 9's or even trip 4's?

Is it because there are only 3 cards higher than it, but 9 lower, so, in fact, you are quite likely to get a flop without an overcard?


And when you do flop trips you will have very little fear that they will be beaten?

In which range of cards do you think your opponent is likely to oppose your group #1 hand blind raise with, the 3 above or 9 below?

I'm not sure that it matters as long as the flop doesn't include a Q, K or A.


Your JJ is then almost as good as a QQ with no K or A in the flop.


Are you thinking AKo is as good as a made pair of Jacks?

AK is much easier to play than pocket jacks, IMO.

Even though it is a Group One Hand, in HPFAP we give special instructions for playing two jacks in early position. So we do recognize these difficulties.

>>in HPFAP we give special instructions for >>playing two jacks in early position


Looks like you just sold another couple books Mason /images/wink.gif


2ndGoat

An overcard will flop to your JJ 59% of the time (not including those times when you flop a set or quads).


Source: Petriv's Hold'em's Odds Book


I think most players dislike JJ because they play poorly with it post-flop. They will often check & call when an overcard hits the board and pay off bigger pairs. They just don't know how to fold a big pair when it's no good.

no harm to mr petriv, but i make it a 57% chance, (four deals out of seven will have at least one A, K, or Q in them), that one overcard to a J will flop! ( calculated from 75% of 75.5% of 76% that it WON'T flop an overcard = 43%)


BUT ... if all the overcards are still in the deck TO flop, who cares?!?


however if you KNOW there is only one overcard in an opponent's hand, then, although there is still a 54% chance of AN overcard flopping, there is only an 18% chance (4.6 to 1) of it being the HELD overcard (this "unusual" odds figure is because you now "know" three cards)


i would imagine that for reasons of hand selection by your opponent it is perhaps a little more likely that the held overcard is an A


in other words if you were pre-flop against three opponents holding A2s, K2s, and Q2s and your pre-flop JJ raise knocked out two of them, it is more likely that the one player still seeing the flop is the A2s - this game factor would probably make it more dangerous for you if the flopped overcard was an A rather than a K or a Q


but i guess you can often say this whatever you hold when an A flops, unless it happens to be AA!