Prehand situation:
Villain had been at the table ~45 min. Seemed loose. Had already stacked off once. Is sitting to hero's immediate left.
Hero is tight, going for a ~18% vpip, but for the last hour, had not played a single hand. Guy to my right was in the habit of saying "are you still here?" and "are we playing 8-handed?" in a joking manner, making it extra obvious how much I was folding. I just wasn't getting a single pf hand in my range.

v:just under 300, the max table buy in
h: ~450

Hero is dealt 99 in the sb

UTG+2 raises to 11, gets 3 callers. Hero calls.

Villain (BB) raises to 40.

Initial raiser and all callers fold. Hero calls, closing action.

Flop ($124): 556

Hero bets $100, Villain thinks and goes ai for ~$250. Hero calls.

Under normal circumstances, I think I would have folded here. I'm getting back into the game after a break, with a focus on 1/3 NLH cash games. I've been using Ed Miller's "The Course" as my guide, and one of his tenets for 1/2 and 1/3 is to fold to big raises late, and under normal circumstances, given the pf 3 bet and big flop raise, I would have assumed he had a larger overpair.

But, this was my first big call based on feel. The guys seemed very loose, and my table image was absurdly nitty. I thought he was trying to push me off it, probably with 2 broadway cards. There was certainly a nonzero chance he had the bigger overpair, a 5 or 66, but I decided to go with my read.

Edit your post and remove results- it biases the responses you get in many ways when people know the result of the hand before commenting.

Then a couple of questions:

1) What is a feel based call and why is that a good thing? You should range your villain based on actual in game reads/tendencies/showdowns from him, not just base your play on wishful thinking. What are you trying to accomplish with donk leading the flop into an uncapped 3 preflop 3 betting range?

2) Resultoriented thinking is pretty worthless and a dangerous form of confirmation bias many players use to justify their play. You even pointed it out yourself, so stop using it as a valid argument or reasoning for feeling good about your stackoff.

It's hard for me to say, because I wouldn't have been in that spot. I wouldn't play pocket nines to set mine, I would three bet. If villain would have four bet, then it would have been an easy fold. If villain flats, then I likely get my stack in on that flop. As to how you played it, I can see it going either way. With villain's range being uncapped, I would lean towards a fold.

I don't like your play. I would probably 3 bet pre but I think calling sometimes is OK.

What I really don't like is your donk lead on the flop. Usually not advised. You can do it sometimes with draws as a kinda blocker bet but in this situation I don't like it. Also your sizing is terrible too. Almost a pot sized bet? Why?

When he goes all in, I'm sure I'm beat. He could easily have an overpair.

Anyway, I'm glad you ran into a maniac because that's the only player you are beating with that line.

Donk betting this flop is insanely bad. Donk/calling a shove is even worse. You ran into the bottom of his range, grats?

Pretty much this.

People come across as harsh, but are correct that the line wasn't great. Let me propose an alternative. You say you have an ultra nit image so why not raise preflop after 3 people flatted? 99 is certainly good but not something you want to take massively multiway to the flop. If instead you had raised to 40-50 you would get tons of credit and likely take things down pf. Even if called you would likely be HU and opponents would have 99 as the bottom of your range giving a flop Cbet an extremely high success rate. More money. Less risk.

after you bet 100, it's irrelevant. you kind of have to call given your description of him. 125+100+(250) = 475 with 150 to call. nearly 16:5. to fold, you have to be right about 80% of the time. you're pinned.

I hate these kind of situations too, but I don't like betting big here. polarizes your hand and commits you. you have a couple backdoor draws. I would actually just check and reassess based on his action. his range includes a lot of AK AQ AJ maybe KQ maybe Ax (junk) in addition to all the dreaded pairs. he basically has like 12% chance to improve over you on the turn. let it ride. if you're behind, don't put more money in the pot.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts. Perhaps this wasn't clear in the original post, but I had a sense that I played it badly, and didn't want the fact that it turned out well to prevent me from identifying mistakes. I'll keep reading.

Donk betting this flop is indeed very bad, but donk/folding must be even worse. at least he called it off.

The only thing you should be feeling is committed.

Yes I too don't understand (1) not raising preflop and more importantly (2) leading the flop. Without a stone read that your opponent has air, this makes no sense at all.

No offence, but I hate the way you played this hand. You're going to lose a tonne of money in the long run if you continue playing like this. But congrats on winning this specific hand.

Preflop: Fold to 3bet. In this specific spot and at these stakes, I would expect villain's range to be approximately {JJ+, AK} the majority of the time. Our hand performs poorly against that range, especially when the SPR is around 2.5

Flop: As played, we have no choice but to x/r all-in on this flop and hope that villain has AK. I hate donking so much because you fold out the hands that you want to face a cbet bluff from (like AK).

Why did you lead $100 op?

When people needle you about being tight, smile and say "I'm waiting for aces" enthusiastically.

Dont give an excuse. But "waiting for aces" is ok.

Then next time you open say "got 'em!"

Yeah I hate the lead on the flop. Only going to get called/raised by better... I disagree with others that check/calling a shove would be worse. Not saying check/calling a shove is good, just better than donking $100 which serves no purpose.

I have not run the maths, but I would be shocked if Hero has sufficient equity to call against Villain's 3b pre, shove flop range. Now that we know results, we know Hero does because wtf is 87o doing in Villains's 3b range from the BB, but since we didn't have that read at the time we should be ranging Villain on TT+, Broadway spades, right?

This preflop I'm either folding to the 3! (more likely, considering we're barely getting the odds to setmine even with dead money and there's a high chance of going 5 ways to the flop in worst position) or 3! myself so I can either take it down or comfortably fold to a 4!

Don't lead flop.

AP - we kinda have to call since we committed 1/2 of our stack and the flop is as good as it gets for us without flopping a set. Crying inside though.

After we put in the 100 in on the flop.we cannot fold to a jam of only 150 more.

If we think this guy is 3betting way too loose preflop, I like the idea of calling the 3bet with the plan of c/r jamming any flop without sn A or K.

If you think this guy is light than backraise him preflop.

Boom you just won 28 BB’s rake free.