You have about 11,500 in chips at the $2500 WSOP Mixed Limit Holdem event. The rounds alternate between limit and NL every 30 min.

You are currently in the NL round, with 100-200 blinds. Everyone started with 7500 chips, and you are currently above-average in chips.

A solid player to your direct right open-raises in middle-late position to 600.

You find JJ and make it 1800.

Folds to the SB who has 7500 total. He is an aggressive kid who is relatively new to the table.

He thinks for a bit and then makes it 3400 (only 1600 more to you), leaving himself 4100 behind. The original raiser folds.

What do you do here?

Muck your cards. Looks way too strong.

With his 4-bet size it's hard to put a lot of bluffs in his range.. At best I'd think it was a coinflip even with a few small suited connectors in his range but if he has the big hand he is representing you're closer to a 3-2 dog and since he's committed himself and aggressive he will probably shove any flop.

If he would shove any pair and with this bet he is effectively shoving you would be a bout a 2-1 fav against 22+AQs+AKo so easy choice there..

All depends on your read on the player.. If it was me I wouldn't 3-bet JJ in the first place with those stack sizes and having position on the original raiser.

If you can put total air in his range shove and pray and probably lose to AA otherwise fold and pick a better spot.

and if you call you're never that far ahead

Shove or fold depending on your read.

Also since this was half limit half no limit and you are a limit specialist do you play more conservative during the no limit rounds because you have a bigger edge during the limit(or should)?

when you say things like "only 1600 more to you", it makes me think that you have actually contemplated calling, when i think your only two options are fold or shove. calling seems like a set mine and you really don't have anywhere close to enough chips for that (if you both had 16k behind, then possibly). i am definitely just folding here, unless you've shown a propensity to 3-bet a lot, and therefore you are getting less respect. his range seems to be AA, KK (maybe QQ) and air. i highly doubt he's 4-betting with AK and 10's or less (he'd probably just shove with these hands, not wanting to see a flop where he is forced to make a decision on a bad board).

This ^....and exactly why you should be flatting with JJ pre so you can see flops in position and take the line with the least amount of variance while in the NL rounds. As the cards lie, I'd say muck it and kick yourself in the balls for bloating a pot in the NL round when you should be conserving those chippies for your Limit where you're supposed to be a specialist.

A few comments here...

First off, I did fold the JJ. I felt it was a more obvious situation than the other one I posted about from the $1500 NL event.

No, I was not contemplating calling. It was obviously either all-in or fold at that point.

I looked at the guy's stack and thought to myself, "Even if he's doing this with complete air, could he possibly fold for his last 4k if I went over the top?", and the answer was a resounding NO.

This meant that the kid was trying the lame move of a small raise in order to induce a call from me, hoping I wouldn't realize that he's pot committed even with the small raise. That's a sure sign that he WANTED a call from me, meaning that JJ was almost surely crushed. Ironically, I might have called if he shoved instead of min-raised.

Now, some of you are advocating flatting with JJ in this spot, and someone even mentioned flatting with QQ. To that, I say...



In general, I hate flatting JJ to one raiser, ESPECIALLY in position. However, flatting JJ is incredibly weak if it's one LATE POSITION raiser. The guy opening wasn't super-wild, but he opened a fair number of times when folded to him in late position (as any good player would do), and flatting JJ there invites all kinds of trouble.

Sorry, but I just hate flatting JJ. I might consider it to a UTG raise if I'm in one of the blinds, but no way I'm ever flatting that to a late-position opener, and I think you'll have hard time finding a great NL tournament player (which I don't profess to be) who routinely does that.

What about saving my chips for the limit part? Sadly, this table featured a few very good limit players (Ali Eslami and Shawn Keller were two examples), and even the not-so-great limit players at my table weren't that bad. Therefore, unlike other tables I've had in the past during this event, my edge wasn't huge during the limit part, so I was less inclined to play as tight during the NL.

Interestingly, I did lay down JJ to an over-the-top 3-bet in this tournament in 2008, in a spot where I might have otherwise called if it were just an NL tournament. Part of the reason for this decision was the lack of good limit players remaining in the field at that point. I finished 10th in that one, and there were about 50 left at that point. This time, it was early, and my table played limit competently.

That was me who said I would flat QQ more often than 3-betting here. I would flat AA and KK here as well, if I had not 3-bet within the last two rounds.

I mistakenly made my post in shooting off, but here it is for reference:



I think you are incorrect to assume good tourny players wouldn't flat here.

Let me explain my thoughts.

You aren't playing deep, but yet you aren't incredibly shallow either, which in either case I'd be more inclined to 3-bet. You're playing for about 40 bb's.

QQ-JJ can be taken out of the bottom of your value 3-bet hands and put into your top flatting hands with great benefit, you are playing both deceptive value and lowering variance. You are flat calling to keep in worse hands. Much as one does with AK hoping an Ace flops, only you're hoping for an entirely different flop. You shouldn't fear playing 3-4 handed in position with these hands, it's a good thing given a good flop. On moderately bad flops you can fold having lost 3bb's.

I hope that's clear that I'm flatting for value, I definitely think you make more chips in the long run that way.



3-betting causes more trouble, in this situation, IF you don't have a plan to continue when 4-bet.

You're essentially claiming your hand with the JJ. You're saying "I have a good hand that I like but I'd rather take the pot right here." You are defensively 3-betting, whether you realize it or not.

In a tournament with quick blind structures you wont get enough hands to continue not getting full value from premiums. The board runs out the same. You must constantly accumulate chips.

You're not playing in a cash game 100bb's deep where your value 3-bets should be wide.

You are better served 3-beting with a range that includes a higher bluff frequency:

1) At opportune times (most important factor)
2) With the lower echelon of calling hands (such as 22-66, A3s)

Smooth calling with the top 10% of hands, trying to trap in worse hands.

The other players wont know.

It's deceptive at the earlier part of a tourney and is a great way to accumulate chips. If you avoid showdowns with your 3-bets and people see you showing down the occasional flatted JJ, you will have a good image.

Believe me, I 3-bet A LOT more than most in tournaments, it's just usually with air.

NONE OF WHAT I SAY ARE CONCRETES, there are many variables.

With all due respect, I think you played your JJ about as bad as you could have by raising 9bb's and folding for the 37bb's, not even seeing a flop.

But, I wont bother to facepalm your analysis as you did mine.

Druff you're just plain wrong here as several others have already said. You're thinking like a limit player where you have to get the maximum in pre-flop with hands like TT/JJ/QQ etc. Flatting with JJ or even QQ is much better than raising them *and then folding to a 4-bet* which is what you did. That's the true facepalm. With effective stacks only 30-40 blinds I wouldn't be 3-betting for value any hand I wasn't willing to call a 4-bet with.

I was going to call a 4-bet, but this guy made it painfully obvious that he had AA or KK. If he shoved I might have called.

I have watched the play of a lot of great NL players at my tables over the years, and never have I seen flatting with JJ/QQ to a middle or late position raise. Doesn't happen. The only time I've seen stuff like that is from donks. I've seen JJ flatted by good players, facing an early position raise. They don't flat late position raises with JJ because those are steal-raises or semi-steal-raises more often than not. Flatting there makes it difficult to put your opponent(s) on a hand post-flop, and can invite the blinds into the hand (which can make it really tricky post-flop).

Flatting AA, by the way, is very different. In fact, that's how I went out of this tournament, but I am still 100% convinced that my AA flatting was the right move given the circumstances. I don't mind flatting AA in certain spots because:

1) It's a lot harder to suck out on AA than JJ/QQ.
2) It's easier to get money post-flop from people with AA without improving than it is with JJ/QQ.
3) If someone goes over-the-top on you after flatting, you will be a huge favorite to win a big pot, regardless of what action occurs after that.

I made it to 88th last year at the Main Event partially because I usually knew where I was in the hands I was playing. I only got my money all-in bad twice in those 6 days-- both times when I was tiny-stacked after getting crippled. I only called one river bet the entire tournament without the best hand. I only won 2 races, and I only won two "cooler" hands. Most of my 6 days was a survival act of knowing where I was -- betting when I felt my opponent missed (or I had better), and folding when I felt he was better. If I was doing bullshit like flatting JJ to late position raises, suffice to say I would have been gone much earlier.

Whatever. How silly of me to think you posted this to get opinions.

SFLD was wrong to say this:


Because this is obviously not a matter of right and wrong...

I agree with the part of his post about limit specialists playing predictible in no limit.

No one is saying flat JJ to EVERY late open. I was saying in this PARTICULAR situation, with effective stacks of around 37bb's (not 100 not 10 but 37), I prefer flat calling, regardless of the results.

I'm not comfortable getting it in with JJ, thus i'm not 3-betting.

There are more streets to play and I trust my postflop hand reading skills.

Some smaller notes:

1) In your OP you said "middle/late position to your direct right" I assumed that didn't mean he was in the CO, but more likely the HJ or one to its right.

2) I'm not saying the kid didn't have AA because it's probable he did. However, everyone knows, in his spot, that going less than all-in looks stronger than shoving. What if he had TT or AQo and decided to go with it? It might incline more folds to play it the way he did.

3) I understand your argument and what you're saying about betting when you are ahead, folding when your behind. By flat calling preflop you aren't really sure where you're at. That's it right? My counter-argument is sometimes it's better to decieve the opponent even at the cost of you having less information yourself. You are reducing variance in this situation.

4) Basically all three of your AA number points are saying AA is a good enough hand to decieve preflop but not JJ, I guess that's where I disagree.

5) While placing that high in the main event is impressive, it has little to do with the hand discussion.

If your plans were that abandonable, maybe they weren't that strong to begin with.

If JJ is so susceptible don't attempt to get it in with the opening raiser for 37bb's, consider the lower variance route next time.

Since I'm the anonymous and this is your forum, I'll be giving you the last word, if you would.

I should have been clearer but I was claiming Druff is wrong about his assertion that flatting JJ to a late position raiser is "incredibly weak". The wider their range and more aggro they are post-flop the better the strategy. Against someone like Cantu or Kevin Saul I'm flatting premium hands all day long because they will keep trying to steal the pot with their 93. Obviously that doesn't apply here, it's much more of a stack size issue. If the small blind had been an old nit then I guess raise-folding is just about acceptable but if he's a young aggro player he knows exactly what his hand looks like and could've just been making a sick sick play.

I don't think it's a good idea to raise 15% of your stack preflop, and then fold. If you make that raise in the first place, it should be with the intention of going to war with the hand, almost no matter what. You should not have put yourself in this position to begin with. You should have raised less preflop if you intended to fold against resistance from below average stack sizes.

horible play by the baldy man. once you raise the raiser you make desicion on the hand. the blind man who make small raise is do this to make it look strong then he calling off any flop if you flat like idiot bald you are.

so options of good player is.
1. shove.
2. shove.
3.shove.

you idiot not know basics of the hand ranking tournanting play should not be in the tournament. if you lose you lose and you have 5000 left to play on. most like u flip or hav him bad with a smaller pair.

if the bald man want certian outcome before put the chip in the bald man need to think thru thick skull why he small stack man all tournament.

you idiot man need the a and the a to play the hand you need stop with the tournament you not build up the chip you not build up the able to take the loss when the decsions are close to gambling.

i look forward to see you minimum the 10000. idioit.

the act is getting old.

I think this is my first post in ask dan druff

That said, for what it's worth druff I would have folded like you did. I favor raising the JJ in this spot as you can easily fold if someone comes over the top. There is a very small range you beat and a tremendous % of the time you are a 4:1 dog. I like getting my money in on better spots and tend to play small ball and try and make better decisions than my opponents on later streets. That would seem to contradict my wanting to raise the original raiser. I favor doing this because JJ plays different than almost any pair after the flop. As well as if there is a solid player raising like you said I want to define his hand now and hopefully save money or get extra chips.

If this player (guy in the small blind) is good enough to realize you are a competent player and make a raise with a mediocre hand that looks as if he is committed to an all in to make you fold basically QQ or worse then give him credit. I have made these types of raises very rarely and they have worked every single time I have done them. On the other hand, I don't do them often and it has to be a perfect scenario as well as opponents that I know their tendencies well. With a new player just sitting down I would say its a somewhat easy fold

edit: also if i was the 3-better i would have raised to 500 allowing you to raise to 1350 or somewhere in that range. The way it played out I still would have only raised to 1550 but its really just being nit picky and not a big deal.