playing pocket jacks

[naas 0]

What do you guys think the best way to play pocket jacks isboth limit and no-limit?

[Vade 0]

Raise em preflop.Then it depends on a bunch of factors, how many have called, what is the board like, etcPeople love saying pocket jacks are terrible, but I've won some nice hands with em both in tournaments and cash games.I will add that Jacks are probably a tad bit easier to play in limit

[BigDMcGee 3,367]

I never win with those dirty cards...

[naas 0]

oh the irony....i have pocket jacks in my pot limit tourament

[naas 0]

raised max amount....wow i doubled up and took some guy out....cool

[Vade 0]

And now you can tell everyone that Jacks ARE a good hand, if played properly

[naas 0]

ill probably end up losing by them though....haha

[RISEorFall 0]

ill probably end up losing by them though....haha

Of course you will....with that attitude anyway

[Big-Ern777 0]

I believe in playing em' like deuces. Limp with hooks preflop and if the flop comes free, play them semi-aggressive in a seemingly harmless flop and cautiously on a dangerous flop. If you limp and someone raises, come over the top of them fairly strong with a bet that isn't easily callable. (All of this is usually at a 9 handed table in the beginning of a tourney. Of course strategy changes as blinds go up and seats become empty).I did this last week with 77, but slightly differently, raising 3xBB, someone raised me and I came over the top, all-in. They took literally a minute and mucked and the guy said "9-9".Players just tend to exaggerate and of course have a hard time looking at them and then letting go of them even with overcards out there and an obvious ace. It's just a hand that gets fish in trouble...which gives the nickname "hooks" even more legitimacey.

[Vade 0]

I believe in playing em' like deuces. Limp with hooks preflop and if the flop comes free, play them semi-aggressive in a seemingly harmless flop and cautiously on a dangerous flop. If you limp and someone raises, come over the top of them fairly strong with a bet that isn't easily callable. (All of this is usually at a 9 handed table in the beginning of a tourney. Of course strategy changes as blinds go up and seats become empty).I did this last week with 77, but slightly differently, raising 3xBB, someone raised me and I came over the top, all-in. They took literally a minute and mucked and the guy said "9-9".Players just tend to exaggerate and of course have a hard time looking at them and then letting go of them even with overcards out there and an obvious ace. It's just a hand that gets fish in trouble...which gives the nickname "hooks" even more legitimacey.

Jacks are the 4th best hand. AK is somewhere slightly behind 10-10

[Big-Ern777 0]

I believe in playing em' like deuces. Limp with hooks preflop and if the flop comes free, play them semi-aggressive in a seemingly harmless flop and cautiously on a dangerous flop. If you limp and someone raises, come over the top of them fairly strong with a bet that isn't easily callable. (All of this is usually at a 9 handed table in the beginning of a tourney. Of course strategy changes as blinds go up and seats become empty).I did this last week with 77, but slightly differently, raising 3xBB, someone raised me and I came over the top, all-in. They took literally a minute and mucked and the guy said "9-9".Players just tend to exaggerate and of course have a hard time looking at them and then letting go of them even with overcards out there and an obvious ace. It's just a hand that gets fish in trouble...which gives the nickname "hooks" even more legitimacey.

Jacks are the 4th best hand. AK is somewhere slightly behind 10-10

Great. Thanks for the already known info. Just as a heads up, when I said exaggerate (overplay) I was speaking post flop with overcards on the board, in which case hand rank no longer matters.

[rwood 0]

NL - RAISE!!!!! JJ is a great hand in NL, just like with any hand though, dont get married to it...this hand will make you tons if you learn to play it correctly, learn to take your hand beyond the flop...i see many players just push on the flop if there are no overcards...not the best strategy....the best way to play JJ, as with any hand, is to understand your oponents, know what they are capable of. in nl this is so important it's crazy! i am probably restating stuff already said. learn to play every hand optimally, as that will make you the better player, good luck at the table...

[checkymcfold 0]

i think that, generally, people either overplay or underplay jacks in NLHE. they're an awesome hand, but they require a great deal of postflop skill to play properly imho.i think that you should throw out a standard 3.5xbb raise with jj from pretty much any position if it's open. that usually scares away kx and qx, but ak and aq are still (unlikely) possibilities. throw out a pot sized bet at a flop with a k or q and see what you get back. calls and raises mean you go away, unless you know a player well enough to think otherwise. if there's a standard-ish raiser in front and you don't forsee any callers behind, i just call with jacks to be isolated with position on a flop. play from there goes by reads (although an overpair flop makes jj very easy on the flop).to reiterate, i think that people think jj is hard to play preflop ONLY because people don't know how to play properly postflop. jj and tt are big losers to many players not because they're played improperly preflop, but because they're played poorly postflop. you have to raise with these hands to make the hands of your opponents more predictable, though, for sure, you'll only get predictable plays by your opponents at mid-limit levels. at the higher levels things get toughin the end, jj and tt are huge hands and should be big winners to any player with better than average postflop skill. if you think you're weak postflop, i'd just play jj or tt with a min raise and hope to see an overpair, which should be easy to play. you'll get paid off big by people thinking your min raise is aj or at and missed the flop.

[Big-Ern777 0]

NL - RAISE!!!!! JJ is a great hand in NL, just like with any hand though, dont get married to it...this hand will make you tons if you learn to play it correctly, learn to take your hand beyond the flop...i see many players just push on the flop if there are no overcards...not the best strategy....the best way to play JJ, as with any hand, is to understand your oponents, know what they are capable of. in nl this is so important it's crazy! i am probably restating stuff already said. learn to play every hand optimally, as that will make you the better player, good luck at the table...

Oh I see. Interestingly, I could of stuck virtually any hand in place of JJ from what you just said. But yeah, learning to play any hand optimally is a great piece of advice :? .

[checkymcfold 0]

NL - RAISE!!!!!  JJ is a great hand in NL, just like with any hand though, dont get married to it...this hand will make you tons if you learn to play it correctly, learn to take your hand beyond the flop...i see many players just push on the flop if there are no overcards...not the best strategy....the best way to play JJ, as with any hand, is to understand your oponents, know what they are capable of. in nl this is so important it's crazy! i am probably restating stuff already said. learn to play every hand optimally, as that will make you the better player,  good luck at the table...

Oh I see. Interestingly, I could of stuck virtually any hand in place of JJ from what you just said. But yeah, learning to play any hand optimally is a great piece of advice :? .

i think his point here is akin to what i wrote above, that jj and tt are hands that are good indicators of your postflop skill, and will exacerbate any postflop leaks you might have. they're extremely strong hands preflop, but without the right info become surprisingly weak much of the time postflop. more than a hand like 87s or ak, jj and tt can really hurt you postflop if you don't know what you're doing. indeed, one should play every hand optimally, but with jj and tt it's much more imperative or you could find yourself pissing away a great deal of your stack.

[DKE_XP120 0]

i stick to limit...I'll raise preflop, usually 3-bet if someone else raised, if their are overcards on the board, i'll usually bet until i'm faced with aggression, then fold, or call depending if i have odds to call for a set/redraw

[Big-Ern777 0]

NL - RAISE!!!!! JJ is a great hand in NL, just like with any hand though, dont get married to it...this hand will make you tons if you learn to play it correctly, learn to take your hand beyond the flop...i see many players just push on the flop if there are no overcards...not the best strategy....the best way to play JJ, as with any hand, is to understand your oponents, know what they are capable of. in nl this is so important it's crazy! i am probably restating stuff already said. learn to play every hand optimally, as that will make you the better player, good luck at the table...

Oh I see. Interestingly, I could of stuck virtually any hand in place of JJ from what you just said. But yeah, learning to play any hand optimally is a great piece of advice :? .

i think his point here is akin to what i wrote above, that jj and tt are hands that are good indicators of your postflop skill, and will exacerbate any postflop leaks you might have. they're extremely strong hands preflop, but without the right info become surprisingly weak much of the time postflop. more than a hand like 87s or ak, jj and tt can really hurt you postflop if you don't know what you're doing. indeed, one should play every hand optimally, but with jj and tt it's much more imperative or you could find yourself censored away a great deal of your stack.

Right, but the point of the thread is how you should play them, not whether or not they judge how good of a player you are. This is the strategy section, right?

[checkymcfold 0]

Right, but the point of the thread is how you should play them, not whether or not they judge how good of a player you are. This is the strategy section, right?

ok, fair enough. i still think that if you know what you're doing, play 'em strong and use reads on the flop, or if these hands typically kill you, the safe play is make a small raise and hope for an overpair that gets read like aj or at by someone that will pay you off big.

[Emptyeye 0]

I'll throw in some limit advice.Preflop: Raise them. 3-bet them if raised, obviously call a cap. In certain situations, if 3-bet at, I'll call, others I'll cap (EG if the guy is a maniac; my jacks are favored over his two random cards).Post-flop is a little harder. Presuming no reads on an opponent, if I was the final aggressor preflop, I'm firing basically no matter what hits the board (As I almost invariably do with I'm the preflop aggressor). If I get raised and there are overcards out there, I'll either call with the intention of folding the turn UI or just drop it right there. With no overcards, it's a fairly obvious 3-bet to see what he does. If I'm NOT the final preflop aggressor, I'll raise the flop if there's only one overcard out there; I presume the preflop aggressor is going to fire regardless of whether he hit the flop or not (And statistics dictate that he misses more often than he hits), so if he reraises me, that tells me he has the goods (And wasn't just continuation betting), and again, I can confidently lay my jacks down before it gets to expensive. If he just calls, I'll probably continue firing all the way down. This has the added advantage of possibly folding out a bigger overpair; with the right board, say Kxx, I may be able to get QQ out of the hand this way.Of course, I'm naturally a pretty aggressive (Well, that's an understatement; PokerTracker has me at 3.68 in an admittedly small sample of about 3200 hands) postflop player, so this may not work for you. I'm doing pretty well with the fishhooks myself, though; according to that same small sample, they're my second-winningest hand behind AQs(?).