J♠J♥ on the Turn, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a Cash Game, it folds to the Hijack who raises. The Cutoff folds, and you reraise from the Button with J♠J♥. The Blinds fold and the Hijack calls. The Flop comes 8♣4♣8♠. The Hijack checks, you bet, and the Hijack calls. The Turn is the Q♦. The Hijack checks. Action is on you, what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: We choose to reraise a Hijack open raise with JJ on the Button, a standard reraise for value, and get called. Even though there is a potential flush draw on this flop, this flop is extremely dry and very good for our hand. This is a great spot for a continuation bet and we c-bet a half pot sized bet. Our opponent calls again.
At this point their hand range is very wide. Ace high hands that called preflop are all quite likely to call here, as are hands like 55-77 and 99/TT. All flush draws and many of the gutshot straight draws (76s/65s) could call here as well. They could also be slowplaying hands like A8s/44. Our hand is significantly ahead of our opponent’s range.
On the turn the Qd comes off. Even though that card is an overcard, there are fewer Qx hands in our opponent's hand range after they call on the flop. They could potentially have AQo in addition to hands such as KcQc, QcJc, or QcTc. Overall though their range includes very few Qx combos, we should continue with one of our standard lines for one pair hands.
Continued below...
On a dry board in position with one pair typically we are going to bet flop, check turn, and either make a bet ourselves if checked to or call a reasonable bet. One pair hands are typically only worth two streets of value and on a dry board we maximize that value by inducing some bluffs or weak value bets on the river.
Checking also provides some coverage to our continuation bets since if we check here and in similar spots, we will sometimes have real hands when we bet the flop and check behind on the turn.
Checking is the best play.
How would you play it?
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