Strangely Played JJ

Poker Stars, $300 + $20 NL Hold’em Tournament, 500/1,000 Blinds, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

MP2: 27,401
CO: 95,299
BTN: 29,780
Hero (SB): 28,070
BB: 25,954
UTG: 20,960
UTG+1: 15,156
UTG+2: 21,026
MP1: 46,580

Pre-Flop: (1,950) J J dealt to Hero (SB)
2 folds, UTG+2 calls 1,000, 3 folds, BTN raises to 5,000, Hero calls 4,500, BB folds, UTG+2 calls 4,000

Flop: (16,450) 4 6 6 (3 Players)
Hero bets 23,020 and is All-In, 2 folds

Results: 16,450 Pot
Hero mucked J J and WON 16,450 (+11,400 NET)

I was new to the table and did not recognize the UTG+2 player, so I was not sure what to make of his limp. That also made it difficult to interpret the Button’s raise. Was he attacking a player whom he’d seen make weak limps before? Or did he have a legitimately strong hand? I did think that his raise to 5000 would make him more likely to show up with AK than with KK or AA. I also thought it was very unlikely for him to have a worse pair than mine, so my plan was to get it in if no Ace flopped.

However, I was also prepared to dump it if the limper moved all in and the raiser called. Giving them both a range of {TT+, AQs+, AK}, I’m getting just barely the right odds to call for the main pot but I’m a dog against the Button for our sidepot. It’s a close enough to neutral EV spot that I’d be comfortable folding. If the Button had folded, I’d need to puke and call the limper getting better than 2:1. If he had done something really shady like min-re-raised, I probably would have folded.

More important than finding excuses to get away from my hand, though, was giving the limper the opportunity to make a bad call if he had been limping in with worse. He’s almost surely ditching TT if I shove pre-flop.

Calling off 25% of my stack here looks very strong, and if Button does have a whiffed AK, I don’t expect him to bluff at the flop. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the limper check this flop with a pair, even though he shouldn’t be calling preflop unless he thinks his pair is best. So I thought the weakest-looking thing I could do was shove this flop. I can’t imagine the average tournament playing folding 88. I don’t know what UTG+2 had, but he thought a long time and folded. He probably did have a pair and realized that I was likely to have a better one. Good fold by him, but it’s a realization he should have had preflop.

Really, though, this hand illustrates why I find tournament poker so frustrating. My first instinct was just to shove preflop, and although I think this is a better line, the difference between them is minuscule because the stacks are so shallow. There’s just not enough room for skillful play deep in most online tournaments.