If you had Jacks every hand...

[Jake (The Snake)]

I somehow just got to wondering the likelihood of winning a MTT NL hold'em tournament if you got the same hand every single time. I think it would be interesting if the hand were JJ or some kind of medium pair. How would you go about playing this? What would your strategy be? What percentage of the time would you expect to win?

I guess you'd also have to take into consideration whether your opponents know you have JJ every hand. If they did, how would your strategy change? If you only had to show your winning hand to the dealer but none of the players (thus the players would never know you were getting JJ every hand), how would you play that?

[Dynasty]

If your opponents magically didn't know, you would easily win 95%+ of your tournaments. You'd very quickly build up the biggest stack at the table and then never have to risk going all-in. The only times you'd lose is when you took a particularly bad beat.

I think my 95% figure might be low since you know you'll get JJ in every hand to follow, you would never take too much of a risk with your stack. Push it up to 99%.

[Iceman]

If they don't know that you have JJ, you would always see the flop as long as you could get in cheaply, and when you flop a set you'd bet it strongly on the flop. No reason to take chances with overpairs when the money is deep. Then when the blinds were high compared to your stack, you'd just go all-in preflop every hand unless a big stack went all-in before you. It would be almost impossible for you to lose - flopping a high set 1/8 of the time would quickly build you a huge stack on deep money rounds, and then you would be able to pick your spots and avoid risks once the blinds get high.

If they knew you had JJ every hand, you'd almost never win, since you'd get no action when you were ahead.

[kokothemonkey]

What if you got 22 every hand? Thats a bit more interesting. You could play them strong, and try to limit the players who saw the flop, but if they hit any piece of it you'd be pretty much screwed, unless you could push them out. I think you'd most likely just try to see all the flops cheaply to hit a set, and try to double up a few times. But this would be interesting once it got to be heads up, because the best you'd ever be pre-flop is a coinflip.

[SossMan]

or any pocket pair for that reason, right.

[Louie Landale]

Dynasty's 95%/99% is hopelessly high since you cannot control getting sucked out. He's right about avoiding all big pots that don't feature you with top set, but even so you are going to lose some of those hands. And you can lose 2-3 in a row to get busted.

The other response suggesting that if the opponents KNEW you would never win. That's rediculous since Jacks is such a favorite every hand. Even if they bluffed as often as they bet when you are beat (and you always fold), you'd still win the blind the vast majority of the time.

Why? Are you going to cheat?

- Louie

[crockett]

The other response suggesting that if the opponents KNEW you would never win. That's rediculous since Jacks is such a favorite every hand.

I’m not so sure I agree with that.

Yes JJ is a big favorite but in this case I know what you have so I'm not playing unless I'm the favorite.

If the table knows you have JJ’s every single time wouldn’t you be guaranteed to lose? For example, you sit down to the first hand and your UTG with JJ of cours. What do you do? I guess you raise. If everyone folds you win the blinds. But what if someone bets. First we’ll assume someone raises you 25% of your stack. What do you do here? If you call you know your behind. If you lay it down you’ve wasted a raise. Second we’ll assume no one will just call because they know your hand, they will either fold or raise. Third asuumption: Will anyone try to throw a bluff at you. I would think not. I’m not risking any of my chips against a pair when I know other players will definitely bet the hand when they know they are ahead. So I think the only bets you will ever see are raises and when you see them you will always be behind. And reraising them would of course be disastrous because your behind.

So I see you as having to make two choices. Hope that no larger pairs hit anyone for a long time while you continue to collect the blinds and build a sufficient enough stack to call a raise and hope to out draw a hand your behind on. Or take a gamble, and if someone puts a large raise in front of you early on, call them and hope you flop your set. You’ll probably get 3-5 shots at this and then the next raiser will put you all in.

The big question I guess is how often is someone dealt AA, KK, QQ on a ten player table when two of the J's are always given to you.

Of course it’s pretty obvious that I’m no math professor and these are just some of my thoughts, I have no idea how it would actually play out.

[Thythe]

I think 99% is hopelessly high also. Say you go all in with your set and get called. So now you're all in...what percent favorite are you here? 80-95% I imagine, but you'll face this percentage a lot of times in the tournament, can't avoid getting sucked out, and you'll never lay down top set on the flop. People will call, and they will suckout more than 1% of the time.

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
I think 99% is hopelessly high also. Say you go all in with your set and get called.

[/ QUOTE ]

The trick is to not go all-in- ever. You could even fold top set if somebody else went all-in. You're going to flop a set every orbit so you can be patient.

Pick up some small pots and avoid big confrontations until you have a much bigger stack than anybody else at the table.

[Cashcow]

I agree 100%. Why risk getting sucked out on an all in when you know you will have JJ every hand. Seems like a no brainer. I think 95% is pretty accurate, as long as you don't play it carelessly.