The Kaizen of Poker by Sheree Bykofsky

Author:Sheree Bykofsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2018-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

Pocket Jacks Are a Dilemma

If you’re holding a pair of queens, kings, or aces, or A-K, you can go ahead and re-raise. But you’re better off folding all other hands when facing a raise, or calling to see a flop and trying to flop a set. If you’re holding a pair of jacks, you’ve got a hand on the cusp. The flop will contain a card bigger than a jack about half the time. Even if you have the best hand right now, a pair of jacks is vulnerable against a raise. In a no-limit game or in a tournament, you’re really rolling the dice when confronting a raise with a pair of jacks.

Of course, if you’re short stacked and facing elimination in short order anyway, making a stand with a pair of jacks is probably the best thing you can do. That pair of jacks will most likely be the best hand you’ll be dealt before you’re forced to play a couple of random cards from one of the blinds. At that point in a tournament, you have run almost completely out of options. You can’t sit around and wait for a better hand; you’re not likely to be dealt a bigger one in the near future. You can’t bluff with a lesser hand, because your short stack size means someone is likely to call you regardless of their holdings. When your back is to the wall, and you’re completely out of running room, you have no choice. Push all your chips into the center of the table and hope.

Hope, as I have pointed out earlier in this book, spells the death of many poker players. In this case, you’ve no other options available to you. When you enter a poker room, you may want to heed the words of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, written 700 years ago: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

Tip: Don’t play hunches. Don’t fall in love with stupid hands like 9-4 or 8-10. Release your “favorite hand” if someone raises — even if they are bluffing. Don’t have a favorite hand, unless it is pocket aces, well-played and scooping a big pot.

Tip: Do not chase down flushes, open-ended straights, or — gasp — inside straights. Only draw to the nuts, and only when you have the proper odds.

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