Flat With Jacks & Go To Hell 🔥
They say, pocket jacks are a trouble hand.
Well, try to play them as an MP flat and they will become a disaster hand.
Resorts World Casino, 1-2 blinds, 9-handed, I have 120bb and all the villains in the hand have me covered.
Out hand starts by an American guy in his fourties opening 6x from MP2. These funny sizings are common at the lower stakes of Manila and noting what they mean for each type of the player is crucial for being cautious when you should be and not intimidated when you shouldn’t be.
There are people (bad regs), who only do it with AQ+/JJ++. Some will use the same sizing with 88, 99, 10-10 “to not get ran over by K3s, that would call a smaller amount”, then open for less with some marginal hands. They get outraged when they me open for 3-4x with aces just because I use the same sizing with all of my range - and that was exactly the case with our American friend. I made a standard check-fold of an overpair on the turn, with 3 other people in the pot, when the club draw and the straight draw got there and I had no Ace of clubs.
“Why do you open so small and get ran over by the garbage?”, He asked.
“Maybe because I don’t want the whole table to know I have aces.”
There are deep stacked guys, who use 5-6x all the time just because. Some people vary their sizing depending on the position.
I did not have enough information on the guy, but our history made me assume he belongs the first type.
I look at J♣️J♠️ in MP3 and chose to flat, thinking that I will more often than not get 4-bet if I reraise. It would not be too bad had I been on the button with a couple of nits sitting on the blinds, but with the whole bunch of funny people behind me, it would more often than not lead to what the Australians call “being in a shitty creek without a paddle”.
CO squeezes for 20bb more, the BU calls, it gets folded to the American man, who also calls. I have nothing to do but overcall, keeping in mind, that flopping a set might be my only chance to win a hand.
Flop comes 5♣️5❤️5♦️ and it only gets better at the American leads into three people for 40bb. The only hand, with which he would open 6x and coldcall a squeeze, that I am realistically beating here, is pocket tens, but that looks more like queens to me. Kings and Aces would have got it in preflop. Little reminder, I have 100 bb left and need to worry about the squeezer and a (a lot less) about the button coldcaller behind me and if the American guy had pocket tens, he should have been worried about the three people behind him as well. I give him a lot of credit and level myself into an exploitative fold.
As the preflop squeezer reshoves and the American snapcalls, I pat myself on a head for a good laydown... until I see the MP2 flip over the pocket eights and CO show the pocket tens.
My travel buddy Ivan happens to be sitting at the same table and I tell him in Russian:
“Can you believe I just folded Jacks?” (And a dozen of swear words on top)
“The way it played out, you could have been easily behind so don’t be too upset… and don’t tell anybody what you folded”
“I folded the nines…” I said something to explain my Russian meltdown to other players, seeing the nine on the river. “I folded the pocket nines!”
“But that was good fold”
Yeah, right, bloody amazing fold.
So, I guy opens 6x from MP2 with the pocket eights, coldcalls a squeeze, and then leads into 3 people OP on a 5 5 5 board. I manage to fold the pocket jacks to a single flop lead and the squeezer manages to raise all-in with pocket tens. All I can say, that the only player not guilty of moronry was the button, who coldcalled a preflop squeeze with what he said was pocket sixes and then quietly folded them on the flop to a lead and a jam.
CONCLUSION
Never flat an open with the jacks unless you are closing the action and are about to play a heads-up pot.
Never give anybody at the 1/2 stakes too much credit, expect for the deadly nits, of course.