[johnf]

I have a real hard time with this hand.

The amount of money won seems to be alot LESS than the ammount lost.

Recently ive had it go against pkt 8's and 10's, only to lose to them flopping a set. I know this is bad luck, but what do you do with this hand? Raise preflop? If so and an over comes, what do you do? I seem to have a net loss with this hand, and everytime i get it, i think "oh shoot, i hate this hand." any advice on how yall experience players play it? Keep in mind this is 2/4 limit up to 5/10 limit. thanks

[chris]

Over the long haul you will win a decent share with this hand no matter how you play it. You've just been unlucky lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were actually still ahead with JJ overall.

You should normally raise with JJ, and if an over lands, I tend to bet anyway. There are a few situations though where I'd check fold. A flop like AQQ multiway you're out if there's any action. Whether to bet into an overcard also depend a lot on how many people took the flop. If it's 3-way or less, I'll usually bet it all the way, but fold if raised. With more players I'd be more cautious and will dump it quite frequently. Though premium hands are good hands, there are a lot of flops that kills them. In low limit games you should avoid trouble and get out early when you think you're beat. Better opportunities will arise.

People flopping a lower set against your overpair is just what happens. But keep in mind that although such incidents may have a great effect on your session results, they will even out ion the long run, the hand would play out the same way if you had held your opponents hand and he yours. The things that make up edges are the situations where you would play his hand different and/or he would play your hand differently. So keep focused on decisions not results.

[johnf]

thanks chris
And what you've said is what i generally do. If its multiway and someone bets when there is an over, and 3 peple call, i will prolly fold.


The way you say base your focus on decisions rather than results is genius! It may sound simple, but ive never honestly thought about it that way. I'll keep that in mind. thanks again!

[pritz]

JJ is a good hand, but don't fall in love with it, especially if you get multiple callers. An overcard will flop 57% of the time, and A, K, and Q are the kind of cards people will call you with, espeically in low limit games. It's much stronger in NL where you can raise big and hopefully get heads up.

[chris]

"Decisions, not results" is actually the motto I've applied.I hope this one helps!Try it also.

[johnf]

well im adopting that saying too.I like it.Thanks anyway.

[ballen]

[pritz]

Ballen,actually I didn't calculate those odds, I just read it. In "Winners Guide to Texas Hold'em Poker" Ken Warren writes "You might be surprised to see that a pair of Jacks in the pocket is considered to be a medium, not a high, pair. The fact is if you have JJ in the pocket you get a Queen, King or Ace (overcard) on the flop 57% of the time". He has a pretty neat table in the back of his book that shows the odds of geting 0, 1 or 2 overcards to any card or pp. With QQ you have (roughly) a 41.5% chance of one or more overcards. With KK you have a 22.5% chance of an Ace on the flop. With TT you have a 69.5% chance of flopping an overcard. By the time you get down to 88 the odds that you will not flop an overcard are 13.265% which is only slightly better than the odds that you will flop a set.

[lork]

Calculating the odds that an overcard will fall looks a lot more difficult than it really is. Since you're trying to figure out if the 1st OR 2nd OR 3rd card on the flop will be an overcard, you need to find the probability that no overcard will come, and then subtract it from 100%. The odds that none of the cards are overcards is going to be the probabilities that each card isn't an overcard, multiplied together. (E.G. if the odds you flip a coin and get heads is 1/2, the odds of flipping it 3 times and getting heads each time is 1/2*1/2*1/2=1/ To find the probability that any card on the flop will be an overcard, you need to know the number of overcards there are. I'll use JJ as an example but it works for all pp's. JJ has 12 overcards (4Q, 4K, 4A). So there are 38 cards left in the deck that aren't overcards. The odds that an under comes on the 1st card is 38/50=19/25 since there are 50 unknown cards left in the deck. Do the same for the second and third cards. The odds for the 2nd card is 37/49 and 3rd card is 36/48=3/4. The odds that there is no overcard on the flop is then (19/25)*(37/49)*(3/4)=2109/4900. Remember this is the probability that no overcard comes on the flop. The prob that an overcard comes on the flop is 1-(2109/4900)=2791/4900 which is 56.959 or roughly 57%. The reason I went through every step and every detail is because this same method or variations of it can be used to calculate almost all odds on the flop and/or turn and river. Its simple once you get used to it and its cool to be able to just work out the numbers whenever youre wondering about a certain play. It comes in handy a lot. Also you can come up with formulas for general situations. This post is already too long so I'm not going into detail but the formula for probability that an overcard flops on any pair is

(2x^3/3675)-(x^2/50)+3601x/14700) where x is the number of your pair. i.e. Kings are 1, Queens are 2, Jacks are 3 and so on.

Hope this helps and just post if you have any questions.

[ballen]

Thanks lork. Is there a website where probability calculations are explained? I used to study those back at the university but would need to refresh my memory with stuff like Cn,p or C(x,y)...

[lork]

Not sure about any probability sites. You can probably find something by searching on google. You usually won't need combinations and all the nCp stuff unless you're working with Bernoulli Experiments(Finding out the probability that at least k events will occur in n trials E.G. The odds that at least 2 jacks will fall on the flop (3 trials) and stuff like that.) So i guess just search for probability and bernoulli experiments and see what comes up, but most hold em stuff can be figured out from the basic model of the problem i did above (1- the probability that the event won't happen) Let me know if you find any good sites. Thanks.

[sours]

Here's my feeling on JJ:

Its really not a very good hand in low limit, no-foldem. I think you have to play this hand like any other low to mid wired pair. You can raise pre flop in late or mid/late position, but post flop, I play mostly no set = no bet.

Yes, there will be exceptions to this rule, especially in late position, but in 1/2 and 2/4 games where 6-8 are seeing the flop (with just about any A, K, or Q) it just doesn't seem to pay to stick around with a medium pair.

[clubJWP]

iam still a beginner, but can you guide me me please that How do you calculate those odds? I tried to find by myself but my head was ready to explode.

JWP