Pocket nines in a bloated pot

I think I might fold flop. Most passive players aren't donking worse besides like Axss on flop which also has alot of equity vs your hand.

flop call is fine, fold turn. ive seen many players donk these boards with worse than 99 but then check turn.

Raise the flop - poke the bear
Let him know that you’re strong and might not go away:

Fold, if he re-raises, but he likely calls and checks to you on the turn where you can check-back and realize your equity.

An early raise can be used for pot-control. Setting your own price to get to showdown can be effective.

As played, a passive player has the range advantage and the nut advantage and bets a hundred on the turn. If we are behind, we have few outs to improve.

It’s not a snap fold though…
We are favored 60/40 against a lone ace or four drawing. The board pairing could have counterfeited his A5 and put us in the lead.

This is close enough that I would probably be swayed by my read of villain. I mean do you fold TT here or JJ? How often does villain beat top 2pair? Is villain more loose than passive or more passive than loose? Could he be overplaying a hand worse than ours? What does he think about our image? Does he want us/expect us to call?

How does the board pairing counterfeit A5. Weren’t we ahead already?

I would probably play JJ and TT the same as 99.

It seemed to me that V liked to get into pots and mix things up a lot. So this would make him more loose than passive I guess.

Agreed it’s very dependent on your read of villain but I’m inclined to call him down here.

I was rushed during last reply.

There was a player in BB left to act on the flop. Can I raise with one other player in the hand? Can I fold if reraised? $30 pre, min click to $80 would put $110 of my $345 stack into the pot.

Earlier HH. V called a $60 3bet from a OMC who back raised from UTG. V was BB $200 effective stacks chasing a set. V check/shoved flop and used speech play to get OMC to call. OMC asked what should he do? V said “You need to call. You should call. I would call.” After the hand V joked about being tilted. I figured he wouldn’t have been tilted after this hand. Could I have asked V what should I do? Or do you want action or for me to leave?

Grunch:

PRE - I understand the raise with 99, but I think we can actually just over-limp, unless the players in the blinds have been squeezing a lot.

My reasoning is that low stakes players who limp in from EP/MP tend to under-fold to LP raises, so we'll very often see a flop, and often enough, we'll be seeing it multi-way. As such, we need to tighten up with our LP raising range a bit, and play more of our almost-but-not-quite-premium PP's as a flat call to set-mine.

FLOP - V's 1/2 pot donk in a multi-way pot on a wet and dynamic board is often an indication of a strong hand.

If we assume he's probably not limping in with TT+, then we might assign him a range of 66-88, all the sets, occasionally some 2P, some straights with A4/64, and maybe some combo draws like 76ss, or 1P + a draw, like A3ss.

In your spot, I'd probably weight his range more towards strong made hands and high equity semi-bluffs, rather than worse value hands. My reasoning is that he might raise pre with hands like 66-88, and he might also just check-call with them, so his donking frequency with them has to be lower.

Likewise, if our read is that he's loose-passive, I might also weight his range more towards thick value than semi-bluffs. I'd think his range is mostly going to be 2P+ here.

I probably wouldn't fold just yet. There's a chance we improve to a set on the turn, but really I'd be calling to see if he barrels or pumps the brakes. If he barrels turn, then I'd consider folding, depending on what size he uses.

TURN - just fold. This is very rarely going to be a worse hand if V is loose passive.

If he bet the same size or any size up to 2x his flop bet, it would be a closer decision. Even though he's only going 2.5x his flop bet, we're not deep enough to flat call. We really should jam or fold, and since we don't think he's bluffing, we should just fold.

It sounds like V is loose, but not passive. He actually sounds like he may be borderline maniacal. Even so, unless we've seen him make this play as a bluff, I would still weight his range towards value.

And no, we really can't raise flop. The BB naturally checked in flow. He's still uncapped. It would be a disaster to raise and have the BB cold 3B. Our hand is really just a bluff-catcher on the flop. Also, no, you can't engage him in table talk, when there's another player still in the hand.

Notice that in the prior hand you saw, V wasn't bluffing when he x-jammed on the OMC. It sounds like he's trying to cultivate a wild image so he can get max value when he hits.

Yes, he could be bluffing or over-playing worse value here. But our hand just isn't strong enough to call, and when opponents act wild to get action, it's often because they're not actually bluffing often enough or betting thinly for value often enough.

Consider this - what would you have done if action checked to you on the flop? Maybe you c-bet $30 for value and equity denial. If either V x/r'd to $90 or more, would you call, or fold? If you would have called, let's assume you would fold to a turn barrel.

Instead of paying $90 to see the turn before you fold, V's $40 donk actually allowed you to see it for less than half that amount. Yeah, sometimes we'll see it for $30, or just take down the pot when they both fold. But if our flop bet gets called we'll be guessing what to do on a lot of turns, and often enough we'll end up losing the pot (and sometimes more money) on a later street.

V's donk cost him value if he actually had a better hand, compared to a check-raise or just a check-call, assuming you may have barreled turn. If he was bluffing or betting worse, it potentially could have cost him a lot more, if we had hand strong enough to snap him off.

Lastly, consider how this would have played out if we just over-limped pre. The pot might be $10-$12 on the flop. Even if V pots it, we have an easy call. We could have seen the turn for $13-$15 total. Even if he pots it again, we could see the river for $30 total, or less.

Against loose-aggro opponents, we should be giving them lots of rope, and playing more conservatively with our more marginal hands. We want to pot-control unless and until we have a hand strong enough to take to war.

On the turn. My first thought was to fold. Then I decided to think about it first. I tried ranging V, but I think I did it wrong. I asked myself what hands beat me and does he have those?

There are flopped straights, two pair and sets. I didn’t think hands those strong would lead bet twice. Those hands seemed to want to check raise instead.
Would a turned full house take it to this sizing or go smaller? Over pairs beat me. But those hands put a raise in on the flop. I eliminated those hands, which left the 3s.

There are some hands I was ahead of. Flush draws, any hand with a four, ace, and 67.

I knew if I called there would be a lot of rivers that were scary. Spades, aces, fours, any over cards to my 9s, and an argument that a 6-8 would be bad for me. Basically the whole deck.

I shoved. I hope he doesn’t have that 3s.
V asked for a count, called, shows Ah5h.
River is a red deuce and my medium strength hand wins the pot.

Did I actually read a suggestion of over limping 99 OTB?

This is one of those hands where the result makes a bad play look good.

However, I’m not criticizing as I am ‘damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead’ aggressive sometimes and you seem to have a good feel for where villain is in this hand. Maybe with more info about villain, we would agree with you.

You keep jamming nines into the population would not be a good takeaway. But having an overpair to the board is not what villain expects, and worked out this time.

I hear your logic, but would you feel solid about your play if villain had got there or was way ahead from the start.

I suggested it. Eagerly anticipating the argument for raising 99 over three limps from EP/MP players who are all unlikely to fold to a BTN raise.

99 is a difficult hand to play as the PFR on a ton of flops. We hate seeing over-cards. We won't love meeting resistance when it's under-cards. We won't often block any nutted hands in situations where we think we need to turn our hand into a bluff.

Other than flopping top set on boards with no possible straights or flushes, we won't be super comfortable c-betting for value and barreling all turns. The best case scenario will be set-over-setting someone, which is a fairly rare occurrence.

It'll often be a hand that's barely good enough for one street of value, then gets downgraded on most run-outs.

Conversely, when we over-limp in position, we get to see a cheap flop with a higher SPR, holding a hand that makes a decent bluff catcher when we don't flop a set, yet will pick up a draw on a lot of middling board textures, allowing us to float when one of the limpers stabs at it, and we get a lot of clairvoyance on many turns.

So we’ve got a top 10 hand in the best possible position and we’re limping?

Poker will never die.

Seeing that the V had previously played a very strong flopped hand (set, ?) for a c/r would somewhat make me think the flop donk here is weaker. This is a good board for limpers to donk with wheel cards and pair+draw. Could also be JJ -TT that played it smooth preflop waiting for a safe flop. But why bet less than 50% with that?

The $100 gives me pause bc it could be hands with a 3 like A3s or even 43s. But OP seems to have put in the combo counting and sniff out that Hero usually has the best hand here. I kinda agree that it feels like either a 3 or a worse hand than us. Good table read.

As opposed to trying to get a raise through 5 players, who will all probably check to us on the flop, when we'll feel compelled to c-bet close to 100% frequency, because our hand is vulnerable and needs protection from all the un-paired over-cards in our opponents' ranges.

Hard to reconcile having a hand that's vulnerable yet was also strong enough to raise over 3 limps and 2 blinds who are still uncapped.

what is this limp 99 bs

if you're going to limp 99, then limp TT, JJ too, because unless you flop a set you probably wont like your hand multiway.

freeCard

I'm trying to understand here. It seems like a lot of people don't agree with my play because I called V Loose passive. I'm guessing passive players will not risk $100 ($170 counting flop and pre)? But is this the right play against a loose aggro/Poker Intelligence Deficient player? Sometimes its hard to identify a PID until after you see them do something stupid. Chasing his set without odds against OMCs aces was the only bad play I saw him make before this hand.

If V got there I would tell myself I got the money in good and that's just variance. At least then I could blame the cards for my downswing instead of my play. I'm up $3 for the year by the way, for an average of 2.7 cents an hour. If V was ahead I would've posted this hand asking why didn't V check raise or raise pre? If he had the 3s for trips on the turn and I lose big, I'm probably questioning my poker skill and considering quitting. I can't afford a hobby that costs money right now. Then again maybe I'll still be crying variance.

manomeans wrote

Ty its nice to know I did something right.

my two cents on raising with 99.

I've been raising larger Pre lately. I've noticed that I'm winning more hands without resistance, and more heads up play. in HJ and LJ I would normally limp behind, OTB I like a raise, and CO it depends on how I'm feeling. I thought If I got one caller I could win with a cbet. I was surprised to see two callers though. who likes to play 1-3-30? Apparently this table.

"Ty its nice to know I did something right"

I mean, right or wrong, I think you had a sound reasoning behind your decision rather than something glib like "if he's got it, he's got it".

If this V was truly "loose passive" I would be a lot more concerned about the $100 bet.
But it seems like you had some prior hands to draw reads from, and the general flop donk logic of "see where I'm at" (common with top pair or smaller overpair) with H not telling villain "you're behind" by raising a smallish donkbet.
Next time it could be different...

I don’t want you to quit, you can do this…

You win by playing strong hands in position with the initiative - you did that

But you have to be willing to fold any hand to aggression. You have to be pretty sure he’s bluffing and still fold. You have to wait for better situations.

I think most people are so afraid of being bluffed (so what) they make bad calls. But if you keep rationalizing that you have equity and you win a big pot that 10% of the time you’re good - it’s a leak, FPS

You wait
If you need to win, can’t afford to lose
You wait

You can’t piddle away chips taking every little edge. You can’t play like everyone else.

Then, comes the situation where you’re in the driver’s seat with nothing else to do but get value. You win the hand and then
You wait

Winning poker is not as fun as splashing around with everyone else. If you quit because it’s not fun to you, I understand - but you can win, this I know.

If he's LP, I wouldn't go for a reraise on the flop, especially multiway, hell, I'd even consider folding, they usually donk with 2p+. Since you called, definitely fold the turn.

Btw pre I'd have raised to around 20, 30 seems a bit big.

Yeah I think you lose most of the time with this line vs the population. Loose passives aren't really going B/B with enough worse hands. You'd just be hoping that they're getting out of line with the ace high flush draw. But they would also have sets, straights, and JJ/TT.

My 2 cents on your 2 cents...

Raising bigger pre = generally a good thing to do in highly raked low-stakes games versus overly sticky opponents who under-fold pre.

Raising pre with 99, over three EP/MP limpers = seems like a great idea, until you've done it a few times, end up going multi-way, and realize the difficulty of playing 99 multi-way as the PFR on a $hlt-ton of board textures.

It's one of those things that could probably be explained in fascinating detail by poker theorists, but doesn't need to be thoroughly explained in order to be intuitively understood.

I guess the simplest way to put it is that when we raise pre with lower PP's, we kind of know we're bluffing and we're just hoping to hit a set. When we don't, we usually know our hand is dust, or at best, the thinnest of value. Higher PP's by contrast have SDV on more board textures, without necessarily needing to improve.

But middling PP's are somewhere in-between. They may or may not have SDV when we don't make a set, so we'll often be guessing if we can bet for value / protection or if we can bluff-catch.

It's very much the same reasoning behind people saying there's no good way to play JJ. Every run-out will have at least one over-card to 99, or 3 or even 4 to a straight, or be paired. It's hard to make an invulnerable hand AND get max value with 99.

I have no problem raising and 3B'ing 99 when we'll be HU, in or out of position. As soon as I see 2 or more limpers, I abandon all ambition of getting the pot HU by raising, and shift into set-mining / bluff-catching mode by over-limping from the BTN or checking my option in the BB.