Tough preflop tournament spot with JJ

GaryQQQ

The villain has just been moved to my table in this £2.30 Bounty Hunter. He's chip leader in the tournament and I have no reads. What's your play?

Hand History #476960668 (22:56 10/02/2012)PlayerActionCardsAmountPotBalanceGaryQQQSmall blind 50.0050.003135.00tigergazBig blind 100.00150.004940.00 Your hole cardsJJ   speirs03Fold    bazwinFold    pjs2812Call 100.00250.004980.00xxxRaise 500.00750.0014370.00GaryQQQ

Poker_Fail

Just looks like a button squeeze, SHIP IT!

Dudeskin8

Not sure about staright ship 30bbs deep, probz 3bet/c.

cleaverjim

Id jam in 2.30 b/h tbh.He probably has 9/10,In all seriousness tho its the 4th best hand so i would get aggro with it.

BorinLoner

Some would argue this is a spot to call and see a flop, hope there's no ace or king and lead out with the Jacks. I hate stop and go's though so I'd see this as a pretty safe shoving spot. Looks like the big stack is trying to throw his weight around. I definitely wouldn't want to take a flop, out of position, knowing there's a 50% chance of overcards to my JJ. You've got a lovely 3-betting stack there, with 30BB facing a 5x raise, so shove it all-in and see if he can call you. After all he's a big stack playing the button: He's not allowed to have a big hand.

GaryQQQ

I found my stack size awkward here. If I have 15 to 20BB it's a snap shove. With 31BB call/folding would be pretty awful. Yet such a large open means a 3-bet just about commits me.

BorinLoner

Look at it when your shove gets through as adding 750 to your 3100 stack, without risking being knocked out. You're adding 1/4 to your stack without a showdown. That's a good result and puts your 30BB dilemma into a different light.

Edit: Changed "raise" to "shove" for clarity.

WHOAMI196

villain could be isolating?, regardless don't like calling so i am 100% shoving, BUT Garry your the tourney-shark here, don't beat around the bush, just tell us what the optimum way to play the god-damn hand is . . .

rancid

Shove

grantorino

I might 3b/c rather than shove, not calling or folding ever

GaryQQQ

It's true that there are maniacs raise/calling with all sorts of mediocre holdings in these games. On the other hand it's a mistake to assume everybody in the field is a maniac and that you should always get 31bb in with JJ preflop without hesitation. If this guy is playing sensibly my JJ is in trouble against his raise/calling range, the best I'm likely to get is a flip. With a couple of orbits of observed play I'd have enough info on the villain to make my decision much easier. I decided to take the low variance option of folding this time, but it felt bad, hence my post here. BTW, I'd never call the raise, my stack is too short, I only ever consider folding or getting it in here.

Dudeskin8

You folded !!!????

GREGHOGG

I would ship it 100% of the time, great spot to double up against a probably loose and confident chip leader

Like others have said i would never flat call. Its a fold or a big committing raise

I cant see myself folding in a 2.30 bh tho!

BorinLoner

Well, I agree that folding is a low variance option but that's because it will produce uniformly negative results.
I think when someone is raising 5x into a limper, while having a large stack, on the button, all the indicators are there to say this is a good shoving spot. You want to have more information on this player, which is fine, but if you always fold this spot because you don't have that knowledge of the particular player, you'll be folding alot of spots like this in future too. You will rarely have as much information on the individual as you'd like...

All the available information makes this a shove. This time he may have AA, or KK but most of the time, against most opponents they won't and this is a profitable shove.

AMYBR

Button is 5xing pretty wide from the button with that stack with the limpage IMO, I def would be

I sigh shove.  Rustle around in biscuit tin.