The Dreaded Pocket.....Jacks?

This is going to be a multi-part post.  This first part will mainly about one hand from my Vegas trip.  I will explain my thought process at the time.  I would like feedback as to how I played it and how I should have played it.  Then in the next part I will tell about some feedback I did get back about it later.  Then in that part or perhaps a third part I will talk about the rest of the session.

This was a session at the Venetian, my evening cash session after playing the Wynn tournament that I discussed here.  I had driven over to the Venetian from the Wynn and after dinner at Café  Lux, I got into a 1/3 game, buying in for the usual $300.  The high hand promo was still going on.  As I've mentioned, the games sometimes get real nitty when they have that promo, but this game was anything but that.

I should mention that up until the evening before, my trip had consisted of nothing but winning sessions.  Then I had a losing cash session at the Wynn the night before this where I was just totally card dead and probably lost the minimum.  Not anywhere close to a full buy-in.  And on this day I had lost the tournament buy-in for the Wynn tourney.  But in none of the previous cash game sessions had I ever been down even a buy-in before turning a profit for the session.

There were a few loose cannons at the table, the loosest of them were the two characters directly to my right.  Now I made a bad read initially and thought these two clowns were buddies.  Only after this big hand played out did I figure out that they had just met that very night at the table.  But I swear based on their conversation you would have thought they had been lifelong pals. However, it turned out they had bonded, I guess, over their mutual enjoyment over each other's aggressive game. About the same age (20's, maybe early 30's), the only notable difference was that one was Asian and the other was Caucasian. The latter was on my immediate right, and the Asian was on his immediate right.

Both were aggros who were clearly not playing just to hit a high hand.  At the risk of shocking you, I will tell you that the Asian was the more aggressive of the two.  But the other guy, who I'm going to call "Pinto" for this tale, was plenty aggro.  It turned out that Pinto was a local and a reg in the room and the Asian was just visiting from L.A., usually played at the Bike and was staying across the street at the Mirage.  But this I didn't know at the time.

They both liked to three-bet and when they raised, or when they three-bet, they bet big.  No min-raises or anything close to that for these guys, no sir.  Although the other guy three-bet or raised preflop with slightly more frequency than Pinto, Pinto always raised bigger when he did raise.  His three-bets were much larger than standard.  By the time I'd arrived at the table, he had already accumulated a ton of chips, and had I guess nearly $1K in front of him (remember, $300 is the max buy-in).

Here's the note I wrote on Pinto:  "He played a fair amount of hands, but he wasn't a total maniac, he had a fold button. I never saw him show a bluff, but he usually got folds before the showdown. I assumed based on his frequency he was not always playing good cards."

I had started the session on the positive side and after winning several small, not particularly noteworthy pots, was up to around $340-$345.  Under-the-gun, I looked down at pocket Jacks.  I opened to $12.  I got a call from probably the third most aggro player at the table.  It folded to Pinto who counted out a bunch of chips and pushed them out in front of him.  It was $63.  I told you he liked to three-bet big when he three-bet.

Hmmm… Well I never really considered folding.  Not to this guy.  There were a few others at the table who might have gotten me to fold those Jacks to a big three-bet, but Pinto was none of those players.  My only question was, do I re-raise or just call?  I figured a raise to $150 or so would commit me and I didn't really want to risk my entire stack with Jacks.  OTOH, I couldn't get the feeling out of my mind that Pinto was full of shit, or at least that there was a good chance he was.  By this time he might have seen me as a nit and that I would likely fold my Ace-King, my Jack-Jack or possibly even my Queen-Queen to a big three-bet.  No way I was going to give into that.  Of course maniacs get dealt Ace-Ace or King-King just as often as nits do.  And he would certainly do that with Ace-King or even Ace-Queen. If that were the case here, seeing a flop would be most interesting.

So after tanking for a bit, I called.  The other guy folded.  The flop was 10-9-5, rainbow.  Pinto, being the big blind, was first to act and he bet $53. Well now, that seemed like a rather small bet for the size of the pot.  With an overpair, I couldn't possibly fold to that bet.  And I was thinking it was now even more likely he had an Ace-King type hand and was just c-betting, trying to get a fold.  I just thought if the flop hit him he'd have bet more.  I considered raising—or at this point shoving—but just called.

The turn was a 7, no flush possible.  So I had picked up a gut shot.  Honestly, I thought he would most likely check.  But he did the opposite of that.  He announced, "all-in."

Well that was a fine kettle of fish.  A part of me still thought he was trying to bully me, he was just trying to bluff me off the pot.  After all, a bet that big does kind of scream "bluff" right?  I'd seen him buy pots doing that before.  OTOH, seeing how sticky I'd been to this point, he could have had a big hand and thought he could get all my chips. 

I tanked for a long time.  My Jacks could be good right there.  If I needed help though, I had six outs, the other two Jacks and the four 8's.  The nit in me was saying , "fold, fold, fold."  But I couldn't shake the feeling this guy was full of crap.  And then I was thinking that I just had to overcome my nittiness.  There was a decent chance I was good (I still thought Ace-King was a good possibility and he was just barreling) and if not, I'd picked up those extra four outs.

Reluctantly, I called.

Pinto wasn't exactly happy, but he wasn't miserable, either.  He said to me, as he showed me his cards, "I don't know if I'm good here or not."  The two cards he showed me?  The dreaded pocket Kings.  Yuck.

I looked for one of my six outs on the river but none of them showed up.  It was a harmless. Queen, the bitch.

For some reason, I showed my hand, and slid all my chips over to Pinto.

At that moment, I thought, well, I'm never going to discuss this hand on the blog, I'm never going to tell anyone about it.  I will never speak of this hand.  I thought I really butchered the hand and had just cost myself a $300 buy-in.  I just couldn't figure out where I should have folded.

Before I say anything more, I'm going to end this post.  Please let me know what you think.  Is it perhaps just a cooler and was I destined to lose my stack based on the cards and the image of Pinto?   If not, where should I have folded?  Or should I just have played it more aggressively, which wouldn't have made a difference in this hand but would have at least been the "right way" to play?

Appreciate your thoughts.

NOTE:  As promised, the follow-up to this post is now post and can be found here.