Pocket Jacks in a Four-Way Pot in a $10,000 Buy-In Event
Today I want to share another hand from a $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament I played recently in which I faced a tricky spot with pocket jacks in a multi-way pot.
After a young player with 25,000 in his stack opened from under the gun for 900 (3x the big blind), I looked down at J?J? from the next seat over. I had about 40,000 to start the hand, and judging my neighbor's range likely to be strong, I just called the raise.
It folded to a tight player in the cutoff also with 40,000 to start who three-bet to 3,000, which as I suggest below isn't really a big enough reraise. A splashy player with 60,000 in his stack then cold-called the three-bet from the button, the blinds folded, and the initial raiser called as well.
I also called, meaning there was close to 13,000 in the middle when the four of us saw the flop come 7?9?3?. It checked all the way around to the splashy player on the button who bet 7,000 and the UTG player folded.
See what I decided to do in response to the flop bet, and listen as well to my discussion not just of my own play postflop, but also that of the other players.
As I say at the end, whenever your opponent is splashy like this one, you probably need to be willing to make call downs as I did here when you think you may be beating their value betting range and they may be bluffing too much.
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,800,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
