Pocket Jacks

Some say there are 101 ways to play Jacks and each one is incorrect. Many players inwardly groan when they see J-J in the hole, wondering in which twisted way the poker gods will punish them this time. The reason people hate playing the hand is because they are beset by memories of losing big pots they assumed they should have won. They get carried away thinking they are way ahead pre-flop and get into big pots needlessly with what is usually a marginal hand post-flop. Yes, we are starting with a very good hand pre-flop, but players’ willingness to get attached to Jacks is what costs them money.

Pre-flop

We have to play J-J aggressively pre-flop when playing six-max cash games, and ideally reach the flop to face a single opponent. As soon as you start playing multi-way pots with Jacks you can generally assume you are behind post-flop. The chance of at least one overcard flopping is 72% and, obviously, the more people who see a flop the greater the chance that at least one of them has an overcard that connects. So I would recommend raising from any position and three-betting in most situations.

Often you will hear people say they like limping pre-flop with Jacks, especially from early position and looking to set-mine post-flop. But unless you’re limping with the specific aim of three-betting a habitual raiser, open- raising is the way to go in six-max games. Usually, the people who limp from early position pre-flop at six-max are more afraid of losing than they are eager to win.

We shouldn’t get too aggressive pre-flop though. It’s so easy to overvalue Jacks and get into a raising war that eventually results in an all-in situation. Consider a six-handed $ 0.50/$ 1 game with full stacks where you look down at J-J from under the gun. You raise, the cut-off three-bets to $ 14 and the button re-reraises to $ 30. Against one other player you would need a good read to consider continuing with J-J after a four-bet, but against two other players it should be a very easy fold. Even if you knew the cut-off would fold you would still have to give most players who four-bet credit for a range of hands that would crush pocket Jacks.

If you end up all-in against one opponent the Jacks will only win 36% of the time against a range of J-J+, A-K offsuit and suited. But often people will only four-bet (especially multi-way with Q-Q+) in which case you are drawing extremely thin.

Of course, statistics and notes can help enormously with decision-making but, generally speaking, if you sense someone’s willingness to move all-in pre-flop, your J-J will often be in bad shape.

Key point

Avoid pre-flop raising wars with pocket Jacks, as you will usually be in terrible shape against even one opponent

The Flop

This is the crucial part of playing J-J. You have shown strength pre-flop and, in most circumstances, should be following up that strength post-flop. This is where people often confuse themselves and end up losing a big pot because they were over-aggressive or lose a small pot because they caved in too early. As we discussed, the flop will contain a scare-card 72% of the time. However, we can’t just assume that our opponent has paired an overcard when one appears.

It’s very likely that a flop containing one overcard completely missed our opponent. We have to take the initiative and put our opponent to the test. This obviously means making a continuation bet should we have the opportunity, but because with J-J we have little room for improvement, the reaction to our continuation bet should tell us how we should progress for the rest of the hand.

As a general rule I would suggest slowing down on later streets should you meet resistance on the flop. I would suggest continuing aggressively if you are more than moderately sure you are ahead. I recommend giving up with grace on most pots where your opponent plays back at you. Of course these actions depend on your opponents and the flop texture and certainly can’t be used as definite rules. Let’s go through a couple of hands and discuss each stage…

Hand 1: Six-handed $ 0.50/$ 1, with 100 BB effective stacks You hold J?-J?

Pre-flop and flop

You are under the gun and raise to $ 4. It’s folded around to the big blind who calls $ 3. The big blind plays loose-aggressive and defends most of the time so it’s difficult to assign a range. He could in theory hold any two cards. The flop comes 4?-9?-Q? , he checks and you bet $ 6. He calls, making the pot $ 20.50. The call doesn’t tell us much and it’s difficult to know where we are in the hand at the moment. We could be behind to any Queen or ahead of a smaller pair or a draw. We could also be behind to a set.

The turn

The turn comes down 7? and the big blind checks again. We would normally expect our LAG opponent to be showing more aggression with a hand that beats us, and checking twice usually represents weakness. You bet $ 16 and he raises to $ 38. This is the moment many players will continue aimlessly with J-J, often knowing they are beat. It’s as if they are desperate to know how his opponent sucked out on them and want to prove how bad the big blind plays when out of position.

Conclusion

Once the J-J player loses a decent pot the conversation goes something like, ‘How can you call pre-flop with 7-4? What’s wrong with you?’ What the J-J player should actually be thinking is, ‘What hand can I possibly beat here other than a bluff, and do I really want to commit a lot of chips to the pot with second pair and then face another decision on the river?’

We have committed only $ 26 so far and can easily get away from this hand. We are being asked to put in another $ 22, but have to assume that the big blind will shove his remaining $ 52 in after the river, so basically we are facing a $ 74 decision. In reality, your hand strength is as good as 9-2 here and should be played as such. This is an easy fold!

Hand 2: Six-handed $ 0.50/$ 1, with 100 BB effective stacks. You hold J?-J?

Pre-flop

In this hand the tight aggressive cut-off raises to $ 3.50, and you three-bet from the button to $ 13. The cut-off calls. We can straight away assign a fairly tight range to the cut-off. We can be even more accurate about his range if we have some detailed statistics. If we have played lots with this TAG we may know that he will call a three-bet out of position 35% of the time.

When you consider he’s only raising an unopened pot with a 15% range pre-flop from the cut-off we can be fairly sure that our opponents range consists of something like 10-10+, A-J suited+, A-Q offsuit+ and maybe some high-suited connectors. Already we should be wary as against the above range we are in a coinflip situation.

The Flop

The flop comes down 10?-Q?-7?. This isn’t a great flop for us. There’s only one overcard, but the only hands in our opponent’s range we are beating are A-K, A-J and some suited connectors. Ideally, we wanted to see three undercards and we could try playing aggressively to take down the pot on the flop. Here the cut-off bets $ 22 and we are again in a tough spot.

Conclusion

You must decide now whether you are in front and want to go with the hand or else fold and wait for a better spot. I really can’t see any reason to get involved here and this is just another example of how difficult J-J is to play post-flop and how easy it can be to get involved with what is more than likely the worst hand. You fold and move on.

Final Thoughts

There are of course times when we should be aggressive post-flop as well as pre-flop with pocket Jacks. But because J-J is so vulnerable and so difficult to improve, we should be saving most of our aggression post-flop for when we are confident we have the best hand.

It’s always nice to flop a set on an uncoordinated board, or else have a flop containing all undercards but, in reality, you are normally going to see a flop that threatens your Jacks.

When writing this article I tried searching for examples of hands where Jacks won out, but every one I found seemed too obvious and self-explanatory. I think that this actually says a lot about the way they should be played. If you’re obviously ahead then play for maximum value. If you’re not obviously ahead think very carefully about committing too many chips.

The art of playing Jacks is to know when to exit a hand when resistance tells you you’re probably behind. Either that or trying to get to showdown cheaply when resistance is met on a less than ideal board.

Play them as if you are ahead until it’s suggested by the cards that you do otherwise. Jacks should be a hand that wins you money in the long term. If they don’t, you need to be looking at your game instead of cursing the cards.