Pocket Jacks

There is a well know saying in poker: “There are three ways to play pocket jacks, all of them wrong.”

Pocket Jacks (or “fishhooks”) are well known as being a very difficult hand to play. The reason for this is that they are often the best hand preflop, but more than half the time the flop will come with at least 1 overcard, and all of a sudden your jacks don’t look so good. Here are some general guidelines to help you win the most (and lose the least!) with JJ:

It’s usually a good idea to play jacks aggressively as long as you have no reason to believe that they are no longer the best hand. Usually raise with Jacks preflop, and if you only get 1 caller or two, that’s a pretty good situation for you. If the flop comes all low cards, you can often continue to push the hand along by betting. However if an overcard comes, you need to be careful. Be wary of an Ace in particular if you are up against than 2 or 3 players. Lots of people will call a raise preflop with any Ace, so chances are that one of them just hit it. You are usually best off just checking and folding in this situation.

But if, say, a Queen or King comes and you are up against only a single player, it might be worth betting to try and take down the pot right there. If they call or raise, then you will need to back off and try to see a cheap showdown. You raised preflop, and you bet on the flop when a high card came. If your opponent is still hanging around, chances are good that they have a hand. Knowing when to back off is one of the most important skills that you can develop as a poker player. Don’t get tied to Jacks just because they are strong preflop; once it becomes clear that you are beaten, let the hand go.

If you are facing a raise, it helps to know what sort of player you are against. Does he raise every time it gets folded to him, or does he need to have a big pair or AK to raise? Is he just raising because he has position? Is he raising from the button just to try and steal the blinds? If you have any reason to believe that ha isn’t rasing exclusively with premium hands, then you can re-raise with your jacks. If your opponent seems to be tight though, just calling his raise and then reassessing on the flop might be a better way to go.

Another concept to keep in mind is the stack size of yourself and your opponents. If you have JJ in a tournament situation and you only have 10 big blinds or so, then just shoving all in or raising all in yourself is usually the best option.

In a cash game where you might have as many as 100 big blinds in front of you, you can’t really move all in or re-raise all in with JJ. Most of the time you will win preflop, but the times that you don’t win preflop will be when your opponent has AA, KK, or QQ, all of which will require you to get very lucky to win. You can still re-raise with JJ in a deep cash game, but be prepared to slow down on the flop if the action gets heavy enough to indicate that you are beaten.