Playing Pocket Jacks
One of the most difficult hands in all of poker to play, for a lot of people I would imagine, are pocket jacks. They just look so nice when you see them in your hand: they are big enough to have paint on them, their little eyes seem to wink at you, they are ahead of all but three hands before the flop, and so on. But why is then that it seems jacks get ripped up so often?
The main problem with jacks is that though they feel like a big pair on par with queens, they are going to have overcards flop on them at least 50% of the time, at which point its often hard to go on against almost any signs of aggression (not to mention how even when the undercards come you can still be against sets). A lot of people end up losing money playing pocket jacks because they just can’t get over their preflop status, and will then continue throwing good money after bad.
The way I’ve come to play jacks, after years of bad work on them, is to treat them just the same way I play mid-pairs like 8’s and 9’s. I make a raise in position, and hope to flop a set. If I don’t flop a set and it comes checked to me, I will make a feeler bet and see what happens, but if scare cards have come and I see any sort of aggression, they are tossed the same way those missed mid pairs are. It’s just too much speculation for a hand that tends in the end to get roughed up.
A lot of success in poker seems to comes from losing those attachments to hands that had good possibilities but didn’t pan out. Jacks are maybe the king of all those missed futures. Play them with care.
