LA Poker Classic $1500 NL - JJ Disaster getting down to the wire

[Scooterdoo]

A little background. Last Night LA Poker Classic $1,500 NL buy-in event. About 350-400 entrants. Pays top 27, but I'm not really interested in JUST making it into the money. Won a few $180 satellites so am freerolling in this and future tournaments in the series too.

Tournament starts at 3:30. Draw seat 1, table 1, which seems like a good sign (although I hate seat 1, and since my table will never get broken up I have to live with it for the full duration). Get off to a slow start when my opponent draws to his two outer on the river and takes about 2/3rds of my stack early on. Manage to slowly build back my stack and thanks to a few fortunate hands I get to the top of the chip count about 10 hours into it with about $26k in chips. For quite a while I'm the overwhelming leader at my table and manage to keep things under control. Kena James gets moved to my table with about an equal number of chips and immediately doubles up in two hands -- one time against AA when he catches a straight on the river (he had a flush draw too) so now he has a massive lead and I need to be careful. He takes a bit from me and then I bluff off $4k to a rag flop when three of us see it cheap and I get raised all-in by another player (also well-known pro).

Anyway, here's the hand. We're down to about 50 players and I have gotten down to about $18k. I'm still above average -- not by that much though -- and I'm 3rd in chips at my table, but most of the table has at least 10k. A new player has just moved to our table with aabout $22k and he's next to me to my right. Blinds are 300/600 with a 75 ante. He's in early position and makes it about 2k to go. I look down at JJ. I should know by now to muck it given that I've been knocked out of two big tournaments late with this hand (and soon to be 3!).

I'll go into the details of what I did and why, but first I am curious what others would do in this situation. The table is pretty aggressive with 4 seasoned pros. I have an aggressive image at the table too, although I have layed down hands to big bets (and I've also come over the top many times and forced others to lay down hands). I don't know the new player and he doesn't know me. The $2k opening raise is pretty standard at this table. So the only thing I know at this point is:

1) my opponent is in early position and has come in with a standard raise
2) there is $3500 in the pot. There are quite a few people left to act (8 handed) and if I limp there is a very high probability that there will be callers behind me or the pot will be re-raised.

Thoughts?

[ace_in_the_hole]

If your trying to win this tourney, I would say push, If your more into laying low and slipping intot he money, fold. My 2 cents, but I have never played a big tourney like that live so I might not be the best person for advice.

[Scooterdoo]

My only interest is making it to the final table.

[sammysusar]

i think a flat call might be the best play. since you dont know the player an early position raise could mean a monster. you still have enough chips to play if something goes wrong.
Pushing all in is not bad either. Against the majority of players they probably fold to reraise unless they have aa kk.
There are some rockish type players in these tourneys that only raise with big hands from early position.
You also might be destined to lose all your chips no matter how you play it.

[TheJackal]

I think its a fold, I mean I guess you could flat-call his raise, but with 7 people behind you left to act if someone re-raises you are probably beat and have just lost 2k when you bite your lip and fold the hand. I don't really think you can re-raise either, you might already be beat by UTG (if he moves all in, would you call him?), not to mention the people left behind you to act. I think if your position were say the button or CO, you could probably play this hand, but I think your position this hand really puts you in a tough spot for pocket jacks.

[sammysusar]

i could see folding although i still would say flat call with an avg stack (maybe fold with bigger stack). against an unknown opponent is very difficult to play. patience is not my strength/

[skoal2k4]

ugh... I hate JJ when someone in EP raises. I'll throw in my 2 cents, but you are obviously a better player than I am given the limits you play. I call the raise, but fold to any other raise from the remaining players PF. On the flop, I look for either a set or overpair. If I get one of those, I push.

Thoughts?

[BlackAces]

[ QUOTE ]
ugh... I hate JJ when someone in EP raises. I'll throw in my 2 cents, but you are obviously a better player than I am given the limits you play. I call the raise, but fold to any other raise from the remaining players PF. On the flop, I look for either a set or overpair. If I get one of those, I push.

Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't like the postflop play at all. If I hit a set, I'm not pushing with it...why would I want to scare someone away? And if you're going to push if you flop an overpair, you may as well have pushed before the flop, because you're likely to get called by the same set of hands as you would preflop. Any overpair to yours is not going to lay down. The only hand that's going to lay down is AK, and do you really want to force someone with a 6-outer out of the hand?

Preflop, I think it's a fold. Against an unknown player, you're behind too often and not enough of a favourite often enough to push all-in, and unless you flop a set or an ace or king comes, it's going to be very hard to know where you are postflop if you call. A reraise would eat up too many of your chips, and you're likely to just get rereraised all-in by someone out of position, putting you in the same spot as pushing would.

But then, I'm a tightass who's pushed with JJ only to see AA too many times.

[skoal2k4]

Perhaps my line of thinking is why I'm still in the peon level of MTT's [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

But this type of situation is exactly why I hate JJ. It seems like it should be a solid hand, but more often than not, it's only 2nd best. It is with me anyway

[Brad F.]

[ QUOTE ]
Preflop, I think it's a fold. Against an unknown player, you're behind too often and not enough of a favourite often enough to push all-in, and unless you flop a set or an ace or king comes, it's going to be very hard to know where you are postflop if you call. A reraise would eat up too many of your chips, and you're likely to just get rereraised all-in by someone out of position, putting you in the same spot as pushing would.


[/ QUOTE ]

Good advice here. I'm just thinking these three things:

1. I don't know this player, but it's late in the tourney, he's obviously played at the minimum decent poker to get here, and therefore I put him on AQ-AK or MAYBE 10's, but more likely JJ, QQ, KK, AA. Gotta respect that first position raise.
2. Against those hands, you can get a coinflip in which you are a slight favorite, but the times that your are dominated outweighs the times that you are coinflipping.
3. The number of folks left to act makes your hand worth less as well. If someone else wakes up with a monster, then your hand is even worse.

So I'd say it's an easy fold given this information.

Brad