Hi!

I have a question regarding a hand I played recently in a tournament at Full Tilt.

Unfortunately I can't find it in the hand histories. It was middle in tournament, blinds were around 25/50 and I had some 2800 stack.

I got pocket Jacks. Player in front of me, (probable UTG) made a huge raise, around 485 or something. He had bigger stack then mine. I decided calling is wrong, I can raise or fold. Players behind me had bigger stacks and there was one huge stack.

I folded. Everybody folded to the huge stack who moved all-in, BB moved in and original raiser also moved in.

Flop came xJ9 all different suits. Then turn and river came both 2.

It came that the raiser won the hand with 9 full of 2, against 5 and 2 of the big stack and AK of the BB.

Have I done mistake? If I hadn't folded, I would have won huge pot. But it was coin-flip situation, looked like the raiser had a better hand then mine, and I recently had run all-in with QQ and KK into AA in other tournaments so I thought going all-in here is not right. And I strongly felt that calling with a huge amount of my stack is also wrong.

Had he raised less, I would have certainly played my hand.

After that hand I stayed in that tournament yet quite long and managed to make my stack up to 22000, finally busted out 130 (in 2700 field) with TT when I pushed all-in on flop and someone called me without anything and hit pair of J on river.

Any comments and some tournament help strongly welcome and desired!

Thanks, Pawel

In my experience, players make these huge raises because they are afraid of getting burned postflop.  Usually they are holding something like a middle pair, know it's a good hand, and are afraid to play it postflop.  *Occasionally* you will see players play AA - QQ a similiar way, usually these are extremely loose-aggressive players who are hoping to trick other players into thinking they have a weak pair…

I would either push all in with my JJ unless I had a sense from the other players play that he is the second sort of player… you don't lost much by folding, but on the other hand there is a strong chance you have a better pair than his holding and in a tournament you have to take advantage of those opportunities.  Calling could put you in an uncomfortable position after the flop, and also gives you trouble if someone behind comes into the hand as well.

Cheers,

- HJ