Bad spot with JJ in ridiculous 1/2 hand

[brassbonanza]

1/2 @ Twin River
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to 12, gets five callers – UTG+2, MP1, MP2, CO, BTN
Hero is in SB with ~$350 and JJ. What do I do?

The original raiser is a fairly decent 1/2 player. Those of you who know Twin River know it’s a mix of decent regs, casual rec players who are bad but at least in a logical way, and complete buffoons. The other five callers span these categories.

I notice the BB doesn’t appear interested in his hand and looks ready to fold, so I can pretty much write him off. Here’s my thought process on deciding to call or raise. Of course if I call, I’m OOP going seven ways with a hand that is horrible to play seven ways. If I don’t hit a J, I’m way behind nearly every time.

However, in thinking about a raise, I consider that at this game 6x raises preflop are standard, and getting this many callers is not at all unusual. Also unfortunately, these players have shown they’ll massively underplay strong hands pre as high as AA. So any of the five callers in addition to the original raiser can have all QQs, all KKs, and some AAs. If I 3b up to something like 90 or 100, I’m basically putting myself in a spot where if I’m called I’m at best flipping and very likely could be dominated. My only realistic chance of winning is to get all six players to fold, which seems VERY unlikely, even if I were to up it to something like $125. There’s at least one maniac in the caller pool who’ll call down a $100-125 3b with something like AQo. This player has enough sense to fold his 88 or A9s types of hands. I might get a call from AT. Even with all of this information my gut is telling me a 3b to $100 is the best option here, of course folding to any raise and if I’m called then….hope for a J ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

However, I end up making the bad decision to just call the 12. BB folds. I check dark after realizing I should’ve 3bet and trying to open a little door for success. It’s the first time I’ve dark checked in at least two years. The flop misses me completely, UTG+1 bets, gets two callers, and I fold. I guess it’s not terrible that I only lost $12. But should I be as upset as I was that I didn’t 3bet?

Sorry for the length, the spot requires a lot of context. Those who’ve played at Twin River should understand how insane some of the spots are in those games. Thanks for taking the time to read!

[Yazzie]

Hey man!

Twin River sounds like a zoo. I play regularly at MotoCity Casino, Detroit and they have a 500K bad beat jackpot in addition to the $500 every half an hour high hand promotion on some week days. I only play 2-5 or the 5-5 RoundxRound. When I’m there playing 1-2 (50-200) waiting on my seat in other games, the action is as you described; open/call/call/call/call 6 way action is not uncommon and everybody is playing fit or fold strategy. Everyone is playing for the promotions and want you to limp with them. All of your old men coffee, old ladies knitting, poker fans, budlight dudes are playing 45% of their range pre and they’ll tell you about it 😀 Insane.

I had a similar spot a few months ago: 1/2 NL I straddled UTG to $5. UTG+1 makes it $13. Five callers before it gets to me. I looked down at QQ and I have everyone covered effective stack is $230. Original raiser has $90ish behind, giving that he’s the most likely villain to call a raise and probably has a range of 77+, AJ+ we want to isolate him… we go all in :D. Original raiser calls everyone else fold. we lost to AKo.

In your spot, without the stacks details, I think raise is in order; make it ridiculous $120-175. We want to take it down pre. We have the 4th best hand possible in hold ’em preflop, we have to show strength. We are closing the action & we can simply complete, but we chose to make it really big, that’s very very strong. Realistically, the first raiser is the only person who has AA,KK,QQ in his range. So, we have possibly the second best hand pre, if not the best hand. Another thing that I consider when there are many callers is their ranges. In low stakes, most opponents are high-cards-heavy. They have all the Ax and Broadways. This increases the value of a made hand/pocket pair in my opinion. If this hand was streamed or on tv with cards up, I bet you you’ll see lots of AQ, Aj, A10, KQ, KJ, QJ, 10s-2s. We do very well against many of these hands especially that all ’em donks holding each other’s outs.

Interesting spot, but we should not hate on the donks. We should embrace them.

[brassbonanza]

Thanks for the reply! In all that explanation I forgot to post stack sizes. Original raiser had his chips stacked oddly but appeared to be in the $300 ballpark so I stacked him slightly. The one complete maniac in the hand stacks me, and everyone else was in the $200 range.

I agree with you the 3bet there is the way to go despite the nasty spot, and knew it the second I released my chips into the pot – I committed at that point to fold all flops that didn’t include a J to minimize my loss to $12. The only point I’ll disagree with is that it’s not impossible for one or two of the callers to be holding QQ-AA. One of the callers I’d previously seen limp AA (not strategically, just for lolz), and I’d seen those hands overcall multiple times during my session. Nonetheless, you’re right that putting the pressure on them is the best route.

Appreciate the thoughts! Yes, Twin River can be a zoo on most nights. It’s become notorious for wild games with maniacs galore. It’s a tiny room that’s run very poorly, but it’s definitely pulled away a large chunk of business from Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun despite its shortcomings. If you know what you’re doing and table select well, you can print money there at any of 1/2, 2/5, 5/10.

[Guy Armsden]

I would learn towards a raise in your spot to try and do your get small hands to fold if necessary. At the end of the day, JJ’s don’t play the best as we know but we can evaluate on the flop. If the flop is a brick and leads you with an over paid than thats a good situation to re-evaluate and proceed. If a flop comes that may not be advantageous, then you can let it go if you believe that you are dominated. My last thought would be on your stack size and how much this raise would be committing you to this part. Sound like you knew what you wanted to do, but just hated the situation. Would love to come play sometimes at the “zoo” as I am looking to travel a little more and meet some new people.

All the best!

[Author]

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