GTO strategy for player always receiving jacks
Let's say there's a NLHE 6 max cash game where everyone is 100 bb deep. One player always receives JJ, but must play his hand face up. Obviously the other players at the table must play much tighter on average and the JJ player should crush, but he will have to face many difficult spots as well. I am thinking the JJ player should size up preflop somewhat for the opening raise to avoid being outmaneuvered postflop. Facing an open I am not sure what he should do. RNG between call/fold/raise I guess, with raise being the most infrequent.
A somewhat related question: what is the worst pair a HU player could play profitably if he had to play it face up? Eights? Sixes?
9 Replies
The player with JJ is going to lose his shirt. The best he can do is deal himself out and go home.
Heads up I wouldn't want to open play a hand worse than QQ for 100bb. If stacks remain on the table I think even KK is -EV.
AA and only because you just jam preflop every hand. If you changed the rules to remove preflop allins I wouldn't do it with even AA.
Not sure about this, AA actually has quite good EV on most flops if you run it against a wide calling range. So it would be a clear open in late position at least. Either the remaining players call a lot and allow us good postflop EV, or they fold a lot and allow us to take down the blinds.
From EP it's less clear because everyone can call quite a tight range (reducing our postflop ev) and we still don't take down the blinds often enough to make the raise profitable.
The problem with JJ is that any overcard on a flop gives your opponent the opportunity to treat that card as if it was the nuts. If you were to raise 2.5x from the BU with JJ, SB folds, and I'm in the BB. My strategy is to flat everything and never 3-bet. Now any flop that brings an over card gives me a card where I get to donk bet at a geometric size. At 100BBs that will probably be close to a pot sized bet. Any 2 in my hand I would treat as an ace. Any 3 I would treat as a king. Any 4 I would treat as a queen. Since I have the opportunity to leverage my nut advantage on the flop, turn, and river. I would treat any 5 as an ace on the flop, any 6 as a king, and any 7 as a queen. I will mix 75% donk bet with my value hands and check them back 25% of the time. With my bluffs I will do the same. For the bluff hands I would choose the numbers that don't match the higher card's suit just so I can keep track of my bluffs. So if there was K♣ on the flop, I would use all the 3s as bluffs except 3♣.
So for example, the flop comes KQ8r. I'm going to lead pot with 75% of my kings, queens, sevens, sixes, fours, and threes. So 43s and 43o I would treat as KQs and KQo. 52s and 52o I can check/fold to a bet size that is big enough. If the bet size is small enough I can actually call with this garbage to hit an ace which I can then use as a bluff.
Since I called with AA, KK, and QQ preflop, I can treat 77, 66, 55, 44, 33, and 22 as the bluffs to match those hands on the flop. Even if my opponent hits a JJ on a future street, I can still bet KK and QQ for a pot sized bet. I can also do the same with 44 and 33 at a certain frequency.
On the river, I'm going to be moving all-in with anything that beats JJ and there are going to be a lot of other bluff candidates as well. I can check/fold everything that doesn't feel like bluffing. At this stage JJ never benefits from reopening the action since there is no equity to deny.
JJ is probably going to have to defend less than MDF on some streets, and now that I think about it, might even have to fold preflop even on the button.
The strategy I've composed is far from perfect, but it would be enough to put JJ in a world of hurt.
The worst hand I'd want to play in this format is KK, because at that point you are going to be experiencing significant less over cards. With AA, I feel confident that you would actually be a winner, because two pair is a lot harder to hit (assuming you can't just open jam preflop every time).
JJ is probably a fold on the button, but if you had to open it, my gut says all-in is best. From SB, it might even be profitable to open jam.
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A somewhat related question: what is the worst pair a HU player could play profitably if he had to play it face up? Eights? Sixes?
You can profitably open-jam 100bb preflop with JJ face up. So it's at least jacks.
They will defend JJ+, meaning they fold 1206/1225 = 98.4% of the time. You need them to fold 99.5/101 = 98.5% of the time with a pure bluff. And you have 20% equity when called. So shoving is better than folding.
Ran some HU preflop sims just for sh*ts and giggles. 100bb,no rake, IP has JJ only.
Of the 3 strategies I tested, open-shoving JJ seems to be the most profitable.
BB Defense vs JJ:
vs 2x:
vs 4x:
vs 100x
Disclaimer:
I tried to crank up the preflop abstractions, but due to the way HRC groups postflop hands together, it's possible that it can't take full advantage of its clairvoyance and is underestimating the edge vs face-up hands. In english, it may be overestimating JJ's edge in the 2x and 4x case.
Interesting to see that 4x performs so much worse than 2x when IP. Looking at the preflop response vs 4x (very low 3-bet, much more folding), I am not sure why. Any ideas?
Interesting to see that 4x performs so much worse than 2x when IP. Looking at the preflop response vs 4x (very low 3-bet, much more folding), I am not sure why. Any ideas?
EV doesn't just come from preflop folds, it also comes from playing postflop against a weak and wide range.
4x gets more folds, but with that tight of a calling range i doubt we have much postflop EV at all.
