Playing Jacks in Late Position

All hold'em players know the agony and the ecstasy of pocket jacks. The fourth best starting hand in hold'em has a remarkably shaky performance record. There are so many ways to lose big with this hand. If the flop comes small, you have to bet aggressively and might be beat anyway. If the flop contains an Ace, King or Queen, it's difficult to know when to give up. Even if you flop a jack, you're likely to have a board in the heaviest drawing range, where everyone is chasing a straight or flush.

Therefore, jacks must be played quite carefully. And the beginning of that careful play is in the pre-flop. Most conventional poker experts, in my opinion, have it exactly backwards when it comes to playing jacks pre-flop. The conventional wisdom is that the later position you have, the more cause you have to raise. The earlier your position, the more wary you must be and more you should limp.

Now I can't speak for all betting structures and for all stakes, but in your typical 2-4, 3-6, or 4-8 limit hold'em game in Las Vegas, this advice needs to be turned on its head. Early position players should be eager to raise with jacks, and late position players, including the blinds, should consider a limp. Here's why. In low limit hold'em, no limper ever folds to a second bet. This is so important it should be stated again. In low limit hold'em, no limper EVER folds to a second bet. A limper may fold to a third bet, and the blinds (who aren't limpers) may fold to two bets, but in low limit hold'em in Las Vegas, NO LIMPER EVER FOLDS TO A SECOND BET.

Here's what this means. It means that if 7 people limp, and you raise on the dealer button, you will not persuade a single person to fold. Even the blinds holding garbage will smell opportunity and put the money in. And now, by ringing the dinner bell, you've got a table full of people with hands like K-9 and Q-8 and A-2 and 6-7 suited who are extra motivated to chase longshot draws. Unless you flop exactly J-2-2, you are going to be fighting a rearguard action and will be a big dog in the hand.

Now raising early with jacks produces a much different result. If you put the raise in before anyone has a chance to limp, you will get all of the riff-raff out of the hand before they have a chance to get lucky against you with A-7 offsuit. Pocket jacks plays well against few opponents who can't put you on a hand, and it plays poorly against 6 opponents who all feel they are getting proper odds to draw to anything. If you have jacks in late position and there are already limpers, then limp behind them and take a flop.

Most of the time, you will then have a good sense of how to handle the post-flop play. If the flop is all small, you can bet it, or if someone else does the betting you can raise it. But be prepared to release the hand if you get raised on the turn. If the flop contains one or more dangerous cards, you have the position necessary to make a smart fold if it gets bet to you. And if you do flop trips, then they will be very well disguised and you will be poised for maximum extraction. This is how I play jacks and I feel it is the most profitable approach in the lower limits.

I imagine that there would be a criticism here from the Sklansky crowd, who would argue that building a huge pot with jacks pre-flop is exactly what you want to do. According to Theory-Of-Poker logic, you want to put in all the money you can with the best hand and charge the maximum for all inferior hands to see the flop. I admit that my approach to the game overall is a risk-averse one. When I have jacks, I don't see them as the “best hand”. I see the jacks as an big underdog against a single, 8-headed hydra of an opponent – a super opponent who holds 8 hold'em hands and will choose the best one to showdown to me at the end. A late position raise with jacks just angers the hydra and gets it to fight harder. The early position raise lets me cut off half of the heads and convinces the remaining ones that there isn't anything here worth fighting for.