You really have to raise pre. If they indeed "call with everything anyway" then you're printing money with your raise.

Flop check is fine, especially if you're seen to be as passive as you are.

Turn bet/call, call off.


Just read some other replies. How anyone can recommend limping behind 99 except as a trap is beyond me.

Thanks Sol. What would be your cutoff in this situation? Meaning how low of a pair would you definitely raise? You def raise 77, 66, 55?

I don't think I'm that passive nor seen as that passive. Perhaps I'm more passive than I should be still, but I'm on the aggressive side compared to others at the table.

You may be the only one saying call off river. Why do you think this is right?

Definitely raise 88 99. 88 99 is a significantly stronger hand than 66 77 vs ranges and in terms of playability. Mostly based on solvers and AI, but also experience.

Part of the reason is that 88 99 dominates most of the limp/call hands (22-77, T9s 98s 67s, Axs, etc) but 66 77 and lower pairs do not.

I think because your hand looks super weak. When you bet you look weak, when you call, very often people shut down after they bluff, but it's super obvious you have a weak pair (one worse than you have) which many people will still try to bluff. They rep super narrow. I just call it off without live reads. We have relatively top of range, and more importantly, we have top of our perceived range. We just look like we have a bad hand way too often. That said villain can have Kx sometimes, but remember a lot of that is discounted due to preflop, so I still think as a default calling is better.

Would you say having the best hand in position in a big pot is generally a bad thing? I wouldn't.

Best position + best hand + initiative = winning poker. Although, given the table conditions as described it's going to be hard not to win at poker at this table (whether we limp or raise in this spot). We are of course wanting to make the most +EV play though.

Many of the conditions that have been brought up give merit to a raise. Having position on the whale that calls very wide is important, as is the fact that the table is playing pretty passively. Nobody is going to 3bet wide to isolate us. It's unlikely that the players that over-limped after the whale have a value hand greater than 99. On the flip side, if the button is calling wide as well that makes this less desirable as does our stack depth which should enable us to play for stacks vs marginal holdings even in limped pots.

Also, it should be noted that while 99 is easy for Sol Reader to play postflop, it will likely be far more difficult for the average player reading this thread to play in a raised multiway pot.

I'm flattered you say so, but I think skill edge aside, a bigger part of this is realizing that if you raise 99 and get called 4 way, you don't need to win it that high a % of the time to make the preflop raise +EV. Many players raise 99, go 5 way, lose maybe 50% or even 75% of the time, and go "wow raising 99 sucks", when reality that's already a very nice winrate when you're talking about 5 way flop.

It's alright to push equity edge and pump pots with the best hand and best playability, but when the flop and board runs poor, bail. Losing, and losing pots, even with good hands, is a big part of the game. I feel like people's unwillingness to get in these spots is part of not being used to losing when playing correctly.

this isn't the beginner's forum. We shouldn't advise to limp with upper medium pocket pairs only because most readers are not high level players. There are a lot of people who are either there or want to be there, so the advice should be what is the best way to play the hand, and limping with an upper med PP is, as you previously suggested to do, what only a weak player would do.

Obviously we should always play fully stacked, but if we're not, that doesn't mean we should be limping everything, just because there are a couple good players in the game.

Raise pre. 99 is not a setmine hand from late position.

I have come around that raising this particular spot given the conditions is probably the most +EV play. That being said, I don't believe 99 is necessarily an auto-raise at these stack depths in super soft games where players will stack off with one pair type hands. Deeper stacks and I definitely raise.

It isn't the beginner's forum, but it is a beginner's forum. I'd estimate that over 95% of the players at this level have a very rudimentary understanding of the game.

Skill level matters. It matters in regards to which hands we can profitably play, how we can play those hands, and even whether or not we should be playing fully stacked (whether that be 50bbs, 100bbs, 200bbs, or 500bbs).

IME, the limp/call 2/5 games show V ranges of 60-75% of hands. This is only because they open the top 15-20% of hands from almost any position, and fold the truly bad hands which is maybe 15% of hands. So the middle ≈70% of hands is the range you are up against.

Very roughly, assuming 10 seats, 7-10 V will limp and 3-6 will limp/call any individual hand. Many hands will see 7-10 limp and 6-8 limp/call.

Top 15% of hands is like:

[77+, SC-Broadways+, ATs+, KJs+]

But even many of these will not be open raised. Especially hands like JJ-77 and JTs which many folks want to see a cheap flop with.

Bottom 15% of hands is like:

[T7o-, 96o-, 85o-, 74o-]

So I think you still have to include many more hands then what Sol estimated. e.g., IME you need to have in Vs' ranges

[A9s-, KJs-, QJs-, JTs-, K9o+, Q8o+, J7o+, T6o+, nearly all suited cards T9s and below, nearly all connected cards, nearly all O1C, many O2C]

I don't think opening 99 with a 66bb stack when you know the flop will go 4 ways+ is a great idea. I much prefer to see a cheep flop, knowing I can stack off >90% of the time I have a favorable flop if I want to.

But w/e, I suck at this game.

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O1C is an offsuit one connected card like 86o.
O2C is an offsuit two connected card like 85o.

As played, this is a straightforward call OTR, especially given V2 description.

I don't think the turn x/r is a J very often.

Maybe he was bluffing OTT with a K, but more likely he has a smaller PP, 4x or Ax.

My only problem with how OP played the hand is the sizing OTT. Pot is too big. $20 would have been fine.

Thanks. Re the turn bet sizing, I was thinking that anyone calling is probably calling a bigger bet too. E.g., someone with ATo who wants to be stubborn prolly doesn't care whether it's 20 or 30.

This is fair. In this case, pot is fine.

I'm on board with raising 99 pre as the better play.

Results: H called. V showed J2s.