1/3 JJ dilemma

Fold is fine

I'm folding and just pretending this hand never happened

Plays like this are very read dependent. Recently in an almost identical situation, I folded AQ. By intently watching every player act in turn for every hand, I trust my instinct. It was on target this time as a raising war soon broke out on a board where I missed everything. Don’t know what hands they had because there was a deep stack shove that went unanswered.

I was in the cutoff, but in your case OOP, I think it’s an easier fold. Investing in a pot that will likely become big, not knowing where you’re at, and having to act first is hard to turn into a +EV situation. If you get involved and the nit comes over the top, you’ll be in a tough spot.

Just prepare yourself not to get too pissed if a jack flops.

Easy muck given V1 description. If we cold4b it’s more like a semi bluff hoping to take it down lol.

Substitute JJ with QQ and this would be a tricky one. Feels like a straightforward fold with JJ when a tight player opens from MP and gets 3bet. There isn't really any size for a 4bet that isn't a jam - I mean you could minclick it but you don't want to play a 4bet pot OOP without stack depth when most flops are bad.

Is V2 aware of V1 being a nit?

Anyhoo, I'd probably just fold most of the time either way here.

GbutIfoldsupereasyG

Not sure if they played together long enough, but if they have played for over an hour or two, v2 probably is aware of v1 being a nit.

I mean, I fold in general here, but this sways it easier. Anyone who 3bets a known nit is either the most maniacal player in the room without any cares or they have a pretty big hand.

GcluelessnitnoobG

Grunch:

Re, your reads - I don't understand how we describe someone as one of the nittiest players, then immediately say his open range may not be super tight. Also, someone is either a TAG or a LAG. They can't be both at the same time.

Basically, these reads aren't much use. V1 sounds like a loose-passive rec-fish, and V2 sounds like a LAG-tard. More description of how they play might change that.

Also - if V2 is LAG, be careful about getting into LAG-wars with him. Better to let him torch his stack than to torch yours fighting fire with fire.

PRE - Notwithstanding the read that V1 has a limping range and V2 is LAG, I think we have a pretty standard 4B with JJ in the BB.

Don't give V1 too much credit just because he opened for a raise and has a limping range. His limping range might be any two cards, and his opening range might be a lot of hands that look pretty when no one has raised but get ugly fast when there's a 3B and a 4B from the blinds.

You don't have to make it $100. You can make it $75 and know with confidence that you probably have the best hand if no one 5B's, or you can just jam all in. I kind of like a jam with JJ, rather than giving either or both a price to call and force us to play the rest of the hand OOP.

If you make it $75 and either jams, it's an easy fold. If you jam and someone snaps with QQ+, that's poker. I don't mind playing for 100BB's with the 4th best starting hand.

I think all 3 options -- fold, call, raise --- are on the table. Here are some arguments and thoughts on all 3 options.

Fold: First, you do not want to flat call V2's 45 bet and then get re-raised by V1. If V1 re-raised, then V1's range automatically puts your JJ hand in a 50-50 "flip at best" scenario because the worst he would be 4-betting are hands like AK and AQ. And here, you would likely have to fold even if V1 re-raised and then V2 folded, or V1 re-raised and V2 calls. Regardless, your best case scenario (at that point) would be 50-50.

Second, flat calling would clearly cap your range. And if V1 were a thinking player, he should pick up on this and proceed accordingly, that is, by figuring out you are not likely to call and jam and therefore jam himself to get you to fold and V2 to possible fold as well. Third, do you want to flat call and then check-fold an Ace, King, or Queen-high flop for one-third of your stack? Ehhh, not really. Fourth, even assuming best case scenario where you flop your set, are you necessarily guaranteed to get paid? It seems more likely to stack V2 but not necessarily V1; so this would reduce your implied odds by half, from the start.

Call: JJ is too strong to fold now, as we need to know what V1 will do. Second, this is made even stronger given V2's wide three-betting range, as we are likely (at least) ahead of him. Calling really is making the best of the current situation in the sense that (a) if V1 flat calls, then we are likely ahead of V1 and V2 going to the flop, or (b) if V1 re-raises, we can clearly fold the JJ. We may not like it, but that would be the most faithful way to play a hand as strong --- strong, but vulnerable --- a hand as JJ in this spot.

Jam: Really, the only argument for 4-bet jamming in this spot is to try and fold out V1, knowing that we are likely ahead of V2 despite V2's 3-bet and we want a run-out against V2 only. If we 4-bet jam here, we might be able to get V1 to fold a hand as strong as TT, JJ, QQ, or maybe even AK.

Final verdict: without knowing any additional information, I would actually fold here. I tend to be nitty in these spots for the reason that whoever has AK or AQ (suited or unsuited), which either V1 or V2 could definitely have, is going with their hand at these stakes and this automatically makes our run-out to the river a 50-50 proposition at best. And I did not sit down at the table to risk my entire stack on a coin flip. My next option would be to jam based on the reasons given there. Calling would be my last option.

Never understood this logic. Getting our whole stack in with 52-60% is a great result.

That said I’m folding here because we run into overpairs a lot.

I don't know if this serves as a counterpoint to the posts above, or as support for one or the other argument, but I played a hand at 1/3 this past Friday which I think bears out the low-stakes population tendencies:

Unknown V1 (about $200) opens JJ to $15 from EP.

Loose-passive V2 (about $200) calls with AJdd from MP.

Hero (covers) 3Bs AKss to $60 from EP.

V1 4B jams. V2 re-jams. Hero calls, getting over 3:1. Flop is AKXrb, and hero scoops a nice pot when the turn and river don't improve either V1 or V2's hand.

Maybe stacks don't go in if they're starting with $300, and at $200 it's just a shrug-jam with TT+ or suited ace-broadway combos for most low-stakes recs. Like I said in my post above, at $300 I think we have just enough stack depth to min-click 4B and fold to a 5B jam.

Can either V show up with QQ+? Sure, absolutely. But at 1/2 and 1/3, I think there's a lot more shrug-jamming happening with 99+ and ace-rag than people think, and the shorter the stacks get, the wider that shrug-jam range gets.

I actually see a lot of bad low-stakes recs jamming a lot of worse PP's and worse AX than AJs, when they're running bad / tilted and it's for 30-100 BB's. I think there's some level of recognition that they're up against better opponents, and the only hope they have of winning a big pot is to jam pre and either take it down or get lucky.

I'm not saying folding JJ in this spot is always wrong. If we have enough observation to know a particular V is never getting it in with worse, okay, fine. But we don't have enough observations with most low stakes opponents to know that with enough confidence to not play a premium PP for max value.

100 bb deep id just jam but thats just me. im not folding JJ vs 2 somewhat nebulous ranges and im not putting in more than 1/3 of my stack w/o jamming.