Bellagio 5 Star ME hand

[Nomar]

I have 60k chips UTG +1

UTG has ~100k, older persain guy, hasnt opened a pot since hes been at table, about 1hr, busted a small stack when he called a button raise with A10 and floped top 2.

Blinds 1k-2k, 300 ante

UTG persain guy makes it 5k to go, I am next with JJ ... whats the optimal play and why ...

more than fold, call, or raise, little reasoning and maybe some whatifs ...

[ansky451]

My standard line here is to call. I hate making reraises without premium hands from 2nd to act after UTG has made a raise. Normally with 30xBBs I'd consider reraising JJ, but not in this case because of relative positions.

So... Plan: You smooth call, and 1 or more people call behind you. You will have to reevaluate and make a pretty tough decision if he leads on the flop when 3 rags come. If it's even one overcard and he leads you have to fold.

If its heads up, and he leads the flop at you and its a "safe" flop, I'd call and reevaluate on the turn based on his action and the card.

If you did reraise... and either he or anyone at the table 4 bets all in preflop... turbo fold for you.

[Roman]

Is he passive or aggressive?
My default line is to call and try to flop a set, and try to make a read on him if I flop an overpair, even though if he shows significant strength, im not putting more than 1/3rd of my stack in there for sure. With this discription of villian, reraising here sounds terrible.

You know, I started to write this post, but then I said "[censored] it" let's see what Ansky says, might save me some time. Basically, whatever Ansky says is what I'm thinking (it's true, it's true!). So, you know, just do that. Work sucks.

Argun

I think you must raise here. Even though everyone else must give respect to his utg open and your call (if you did that), i am fairly sure that there are enough good players left to act that you JJ will not be a powerhouse after the flop. Reraise to thin the field. Dont let a good player in the big blind hit a dry flop and catch you with an overpair. Besides, you may be ahead of UTG's range now, bc of that AT hand you described. Reraise to 13k, and be prepared to play some poker in position. If others come in, then youve got your work cut out for you.

[Nomar]

sounds great on paper, you need to be prepared for the possible move in, is it an easy fold ? 25% of my stack is going in on the reaise....

on an all-in from UTG... yah, id fold. the reraise commits alot, but i dont think its the end of the world. the end of the world is when the flop comes after you just called instead of reraised. How many good flops are there for your hand after you call? Certainly AKQ is terrible, but what about 4 5 6. Where do you stand? He could easily have JJ or better, and that flop just cripples your ability to lose less chips. Basically any non T flop is bad for your hand, so why not find out in advance if you are behind?

[adanthar]

Reraising is suicidal. His range isn't that large and you're gonna fold out only the part of it that you're ahead of. Folding is bad. So, once again, you call and play poker.

BTW, people calling behind you is not all that bad, since if he leads into multiple people on *any* flop, he'll usually have something pretty good to continue.

[LearnedfromTV]

His first raise in an hour means his first raise in about 35-40 hands? If his cards have been average during this time, we can speculate he's raising the top 2-3% of hands, speculation that's really rough and probably low, but given that he's UTG, maybe not. That he called a short stack with AT is pretty meaningless in thinking about his opening raise range. He hasn't opened a pot in an hour is what gives us a read. He could have been card dead but we have to use the information we have. Plus, again, he's UTG.

So it's AA-JJ, AK 90% of the time. Maybe a little TT-99 or AQ. You have to call and play poker. You are getting implied odds to flop a set vs an overpair and you have position which you can use to smell out a missed AK. There is some risk involved in allowin others into the pot, but since you are drawing more often that not, I think bloating the pot for the times you hit a set is more valuable than isolating for the times he has AK, especially since AA-KK and maybe QQ probably push you off your hand preflop (and you lose 25% of your stack) if you reopen the betting.

Flop plan depends on too many factors, but I think you'll be folding more often than you call and calling more often than you raise, if no J flops. On a favorable but dangerous flop a raise enables him to play perfectly against you; seeing the turn cheaply, if you can, gives you a lot of flexibility to read the board and his actions and use your position to either identify that you are likely to have the best hand or push him off the best hand.

Edit: I just saw adanthar's point that a three or four way pot makes UTG's postflop actions more readable. I agree.

thread is blowing up! good point about people calling behind, didnt think about that. but if he is behind your hand on the preflop, and misses (assuming non A flop), and checks. then you have a new problem. Do you lead without an overcard? what if you are called behind? out of the pot and into the fire. once again, how many flops are good for your hand??? (I agree you need a plan, but these what if scenarios only get so much done)

This is why we all like to have, what the french call, position.