This hand occurred very late in a live 1/2 no limit game. The standard raise here is $15-17 which will usually get you 3 to 5 callers. A bet of $20-25 will usually weed out most of the speculative hands.

My opponent for this hand is extremely tight, he rarely calls anywhere but the blinds. He usually raises to $15-25 anytime he enters a pot, anytime I see his hand at a river he has a high pocket pair or Ace/King. I saw him fold AK once when the board looked scary and there was a lot of action ahead of him. I feel that unless an over card comes on the flop to his pair, he won't slow down after the flop. Unless, of course, there is some serious action before him. In this session, I only saw one hand where I thought he may have been bluffing.

Opp is to my immediate right. He is the first to bet and bets $20, I call with KK and it is folded around to make us heads up.

He bets $25 on a flop of K, rag, J. I call.

I can practically see him jump out of his chair on this flop. I put him on either KJ or JJ but am leaning toward JJ. He can see nothing but the board.

A rag comes on the turn and he bets $50. He is almost rubbing his hands in his excitement not thinking for a second about what I may have. I think for a few seconds and call. I am positive he has JJ

Would you play this any different up to this point?

In case it is too difficult or too much work to read the play, I will include this:

Me: KK
Opp: probably JJ bets $20

Flop: K, rag, J (suits are unimportant)
Opp: bets $25, I call

Turn: rag
Opp: bets $50 and I call

Do you play this any different?

How deep are each of your stacks?

Raise flop. He bet 25 into 40. If he has AA or JJ you will likely stack him anyway. If he has anything else you wont make any money off him. You need to raise either the flop or the turn to build a big pot. Calling isn't too bad either if you only have 200 or so in front of you. Wuth deeper stacks though you want the pot to be pretty big once you get to the river so finding a raise somewhere is something you need to do.

What Sea Wasp said.

If villain has JJ or AA than he's probably not folding to a raise on the flop, so go ahead and make a raise here. In fact he might put you on AK, or a draw like AQ or QT and might push to your raise which is what you want.

I had about $250 left after the turn and he covered me.

Thanks for the responce and you are probably correct. However, I was afraid to raise for fear of tipping him off that I had a big hand. He was so oblivous to anything but his trip jacks I didn't want to do anything that would snap him out of that. If the exact same situation were to occur I would like to try your advice to see what would happen.

you should probably raise the flop, if not you should 100% raise the turn. You have top set, so this is where you want to play a big pot so the more money you get in there the less likely he is to fold and obv. you have the nuts so the more money is welcome. You put the guy on a big hand right? So is your goal to keep tricking him into thinking he is ahead or to get all his money? Raise and bet on every street this type of player probably has a hand and probably wont fold so get all the money in, if you wait to the river to raise your profit goes way down.

Ok, here is how the hand played out and I am not simpy trying to sneak a bad beat story in here.

The river comes J, giving him quads against my Kings over Jacks fullhouse.

Now if I had went all in on the turn, I wouldn't be that upset with the result. This happens in poker and there is nothing you can do.

What happened was Opp bet $75 and my brain said "well he just made quads and caught the only card that could hurt you, time to fold".

Meanwhile, I count out $150 chips and say raise $75. He immediately raises all in and I insta call.

I really don't know why I did it. My plan was to allow him to bet on the river then put in a healthy reraise. Only thing is, when the river came I stuck with the plan even though I knew I was beat. I wouldn't have minded so much if I had simply called his river bet but to put in a reraise on that card was lunacy. I was so sure he had pocket jacks that I would have bet my stack on it by the turn.

Anyone else ever had such a collosal brain f a r t?

BBFIDTS

Nicely disguised.

First of all ... what the hell is considered "late" in a poker game?

Second of all, I smooth call a scared little rabbit when he's doing my betting for me. Then raise him on the river. And I lose my money, too. You can't back off betting because you're scared of quads. It'll happen, but less than you think.

my goodness.

if you think he has that strong of a hand, stop calling.

put money into the pot. it's not hard.

obviously your read was not accurate. this thread is so amazingly results oriented it's funny.

given you did call the flop, raising the turn is usually the best play EVEN if you don't know how strong he is. it's time to get money into the pot.

- Jordan

Flop comes KJx and you insta put him on JJ (funny how he ended up having it, right?). Then, when you know he isn't folding, you slowplay until the river. What are you waiting for? A draw to come through and scare him in to checking? Raise the flop, raise the turn, stop slowplaying sets, and try putting your opponent on a hand before they turn it over.

This is a poker club I play at with only one table (two when it gets busy and up to four for a tournament). We had been playing with basically the same group of people for 6-8 hours. That is what is considered late in a poker game.

The whole point of my post is that that was exactly what I did and was correct. As I stated, the only reason I didn't bet was that I didn't want to wake him up to the fact that I had a hand. There was nothing scary about the flop or turn so I wasn't too worried about that. The last thing I expected was for the case Jack, the only card that could help him, to come. I was allowing him to commit himself then I was going to reraise.

Thank you for your constructive criticism. I think you are correct and I should have played this as you say. I especially needed to hear "this thread is so amazingly results oriented it's funny". Focus on correct play and the rest will take care of itself.

I do explain why I didn't raise the turn above but you are probably correct that he would call my reraise on the turn.

Okay, assuming this whole thing isn't a hoax or poorly disguised bad beat story, your entire premise is majorly flawed.

If you flop set over set, jam jam jam jam jam jam jam jam jam. And then jam some more. There is not a single person on this website, on any website or anywhere on earth that is going to fold JJ on a KJx rainbow board. You want him to know you have a big hand. He wants you to have a big hand. He is sitting there wondering how he's going to get all of your chips in the middle. Help him out. Declare out loud, WOW I LOVE MY HAND I RAISE. When you have JJ on a KJx board, nothing makes you happier than a re-raise. Make him happy!

That said, I think it's more likely that you didn't put him on JJ. If you did, nothing you said makes sense...from the slowplaying to the raising on the end. If you would've told this story with a, "I thought he had AJ" angle, everyone would've made a lot more sense.

Right. Well, to be more constructive.

To be blunt, your explanation is just wrong.

A good player will think you are often more stronger than not when you are just calling him down, it looks like a trap...

Especially on a dry board, he will put you on a strong hand, not a draw.

Say you have 55 the flop comes 5 9 2r he leads, you just call. This looks ridicuously like some sort of big hand, or maybe you have like 88. Regardless, if you are lead into on this flop THIS is when you raise with your set. YOu don't want to wiat till the turn. More people are more willilng to put money in on flops like this..as oppossed to be calling called and feeling like they are trapped.

And regardless in your hand, since you put him on a set, I can guarentee he would have flung his chips into the pot on the flop or turn.

But a really really really good player, that see's what you have done in the past, and sees you calling two medium/large bets on that kind of board could possibly put you on a higher set and slow down. It's rare, but when you slowplay that much, it teleports your hand more than just raising it up earlier.

Seriously. Start fast playing more often in spots where you think the other guy has a strong hand as well. Get money into the pot early, when other players are more willing to gamble when you have an edge.

- Jordan

I think what Jordan's trying to say is he would've open-folded JJ on this board. The ego on that kid.

Set over set is as big a cooler as you'll ever see on a dry board. The only bigger cooler is when the lower set makes quads. Don't complain about it. Don't talk about folding your top FH. The only thing to talk about is whether or not you got full "value" for your top FH by getting all of his chips into the pot.

Your only goal on the hand you posted should have been how to get all of his chips into the pot. You needed to raise on the turn to get the pot bigger and get him more committed.

Also, if you're in EP or MP, you flat calling his raise here is terrible since you invite other people into the pot. Reraise to $50 or $60 to make sure you get heads up.
Nobody cares if the villain made quads. Nobody cares that based on very limited information, you post the villain's exact hand in the OP, as if you're psychic or something.

The only reason you played the hand poorly is that you didn't get him stuck to the pot earlier by making a small raise to build the pot.

If you're positive he has JJ, then there's no way he can get away from the hand and you have no reason not to raise him and get all of his chips in on the flop or the turn.