9 handed
I have 620 and players involved got me covered.

UTG+2 raises to 15.
A winner in the game, but he raises to 20 from early position with premium hands.
I'm in the LJ(next to act) and I make it 50 with T9s.
Old guy in HJ makes it 120. I would say it's 99% certain that he has KK+.
Folded around to me.
Can I call?
If I call we see a $252 pot with 500 remaining.

I think you gotta fold. T9s isn't going to flop well enough of the time, and old guy is likely going all the way with his hand unless a super scary board comes out.

I think the important question here is why we're 3betting this guys with T9s in middle position..?

As for how it played out, we don't have the 27% equity required directly so think about what you'd continue with OTF... we'd only feel good about 2p+ which we only get a bit over 5% of the time. We're never getting him to fold an overpair OTF for the ~20% of the time we have an 8out+ draw (~35% equity) . So at a minimum we'd need 20:1 implied odds (assuming he always stacks BTW) pre to justify this, which we're not getting with our $620 effective stack.

This is closer to a fold pre the first time around than a call. MP + worst relative position + poor absolute position is most likely -EV. The only way we make $$ here long term is running hot above expectation and smashing flops.

If you were on the BTN and there were no callers this is a call. If you're on the BTN and there are a couple callers this is a call. If you were BB closing the action this is a call.

But this specific scenario is a fold in my book and I don't think it's results oriented to say that. The 3! was spew but we are going to get squeezed ourself often enough when we make this call pre and we just aren't going to win often enough postflop to show a profit.

Gosh I'm starting to sound nitty.

No, imo this is correct. And I play pretty loose/quite spewy preflop

Why is my 3 bet so bad?
Top of his range with this sizing preflop is TT or AQ, and that's very generous to assume.
I saw him opening 4x with KJs from early position during this session.
The table was very loose so there is no way he has a premium hand here.
My preflop read comes from months playing with the guy.

I'm very aware of my position and this it not a standard 3 bet from me, but given my read and my image I thought it wouldn't be bad.

I've given my hand some thought and I don't disagree.
Calling the 4 bet was a mistake.

However, do we really need 20:1 to call if he is a bad player that always has aces or kings and will never fold it?

Also, always folding every flop except two pair+ or big draws is a mistake.
We will probably not get pot odds to call on a ten high board, but depending on his bet size and remaining stack size we should at least consider a call.

If we flop a pair on a non A or K board we got(at least) 5 outs to suck out on the turn, and he will always pay us off if we hit.

I'm thinking 15:1 preflop might be enough here to call here.

It's bad because you still have 4-5 guys behind you that can cold-call or cold 4-bet a premium, you have zero blockers to their premiums. You're even blocking part of UTG + 2's folding range if you happen to get through everyone else (J10s/T9s/T8s/98s, etc).

And the CO/BTN/MP players have position on you postflop if they cold-call.

Bro, you have T high in live poker where people didnt drive to the casino to fold. Just let it go. Flatting the 4-bet just adds spew to previous spew

Players left to act got 3,84% each to be dealt TT+,AQs+,AKo, plus they're probably cold calling even wider.
So I guess due to my position I'm not allowed to own the weak reg :/

Thanks Minatorr.
Good reply.

No problem man!

Youd have to pry T9s from my cold dead fingers before Im folding it to a 3x ep raise from any position.

If you are going to 3 bet/iso a hand to "own the weak reg' 9-10 suited is one of my least favorite for many reasons
1: It flops extremely well mutiway IP
2: It runs pretty poorly hot and cold vs a value range
3: It has no blockers to stnd value 4 bets

If you want to iso the bad reg open your value range to something like 99+, a-10+ and all broadways
and add in a-2,3,4,5 suited as a bluff to give you some balance.

easy call well played so far

the reason its an easy call is because v's hand is face up so if your range assessmemt is correct then you own all the implied odds

Answer is this. Very good stuff above. Much yay. Huzzah. And such.


Answer is not this. Very bad stuff above, aka how the hand was originally play i assume.

Preflop I like the 3bet if you're confident in your read; bear in mind people do make mistakes and it may not be cast-iron as you might think ; )

Facing the cold 4bet I think its a relatively easy fold; especially if you're not particularly rolled. Against a range of JJ+ you only have 20% equity; as a rule of thumb OOP only realises about 80% of its equity so its more like 16%.

You're getting 70:200 so you need about 3:1 = 25%. In practice you're going to flop poorly, or get into an awkward spot with a flush draw, straight draw or a pair in a low SPR pot; even if he has AJo or something silly occasionally theres not much you can do about it.

tl;dr fold pre and avoid an awkward, difficult spot :3

Defending against a 4bet with a hand you 3bet bluffed with isn't something you really want to do. Even if the math can be right it just kind of defies logic. The only reason this is awkward is b/c you 3bet a pretty good hand. IIRC Ed Miller tells you to 3bet T9s against loose raisers, but it didn't make sense when I read it. Stuff like 56s/K4-2s are better, but blockers and low frequencies are best in LLSNL because Vs can be super unpredictable.

Thank you sir.

This would be a call pre unless there are lags behind that will 3bet often. I would mix in an occasional 3bet. Never folding pre.

Call>raise >fold pre imo. If we decide that we can't flat (we can imo) then this is a prime hand to 3bet because it's right up there amongst the best hands we're not calling. We don't have blockers to premiums, so what? Every 3bet bluff from this spot is going to have an A or K? No, that's easy to play against and we want some coverage. Villain is a winner in the game, so balance helps. I 3bet this maybe 20% and flat the other 80%.