At 2NL, against one opponent, and especially if I am OOP, I 3bet
JJ most of the time. The hand is notorious to play badly after the
flop, so I if I take it preflop, I am happy enough.
However, against two villains, at 2NL, there is very little chance that they will both
fold. Squeezing at 2NL does not work because most people do not understand the show of force. Then you find yourself OOP in a super-bloated pot. Another argument against is that at 2NL, reraising often results in a raising war until everyone is
all-in. This would most likely force you to
lay down JJ and it has more chance of happening against two opponents than heads-up.
In the
case above, this is mitigated by the fact that the raiser and caller are in the CO and
button, so their
range (if they understand
position) are wider and your
squeeze has some more chance of success. The CO bet sizing preflop indicates that he at least has a clue, but he is probably not on a
steal since he raises two limpers in the CO. However, note also that both the CO and
button are short stacks, so reraising would pretty much leave them only with the options of folding or going
all-in. Calling would not make much sense. This means that most of the time, they will
lay down worse hands and
shove with better hands.
So I
don't think it is stupid to
call in this
spot and play
JJ for
overpair/
set value.
As played, on the
flop, I am tempted to
check/
raise, but the risk of giving a
free card is high. The
flop misses most of villains ranges and we have no
reads that CO cbets a lot, so donking is good. Pot size is good in theory. With such a board, you have good chances of being called by worse hands and a pot sized bet is the right price to prevent the strongest draws to
call profitably. But notice again that facing a pot sized bet, normal opponents are left with little choice but folding or shoving over due to their
stack sizes, so maybe in this
case I would only bet 3/4 pot so that calling becomes a slightly more sensible
option to them.
Finally, as played, obviously,
call the
turn based on
pot odds.