I still don't know what to make of this hand from last night. I was playing $1/$2 Limit Hold 'Em at Hollywood Poker when this hand came up and befuddled me.

I was on the button w/ AK. It was limped around to me, I make it two bets, one of the blinds makes it 3 bets and an early position limper caps it. Now I've got the button and AK and even though I have to cold-call two more bets I just can't lay it down, so I call. (12sb).

The flop comes JJ6. Blind bets, limper calls - so now there's 13.5 sb in the pot (there was a rake to account for the other .5sb), and even though I'm getting a huge price to call, I just think there's no way in hell I've got the best hand, and I may be drawing pretty close to dead, so I fold despite getting 13.5 to 1.

Good fold/bad fold?

i fold

bad fold usually.

as in, you're usually drawing live and folded a live draw in a big pot.

but, this wasn't a huge mistake if it was, so don't worry about it too much.

aseem

Folding or raising are both much better than calling, and you can make a legit case for either folding or raising but not calling.

Basically, the plan for raising is you're forcing them to show MORE aggression at you (to let you know for SURE you're beat) and to represent the J to make something like 77 fold.

It entirely depends on how much credit you give to them from the preflop action.

It's a bad fold if someone's betting the 6 only, a pocket pair, or ace high, because by raising you put yourself in a position to represent the jack, win the pot without a showdown, or hit a live overcard.

At higher stakes I'm more likely to raise... but for a bet and a call you're at least going to get called down (i.e. you have to hit an overcard to be *possibly* good).

I'm folding too.

As I said in the original post, I know I was getting a huge price, but I also didn't think I could be ahead. I wasn't worried about a J, but i was worried about AA, KK, or QQ.

My thinking was I'm either close to dead (against AA or KK) or drawing thin against QQ, 10 10 or even 99. If either opponent has anything they won't lay it down if I raise, so I just saw myself contributing more (on later streets) to a pot I estimated I had very little chance to win.

The hand played to a showdown and the Blind had an unimproved A7 off, and the limper had an unimproved A10 off. What the **** were these guys thinking??? Both out of position to a raiser and re-raising and capping respectively w/ crap hands.

In the end I feel like I made a poor math decision, but I had a read and stuck w/ it and just happened to find myself in a hand w/ two maniacs.

Anyone else as surprised as I was???

Along with AA and KK, AJ and KJ have you in terrible shape when considering reverse implied odds.