1/3 at the Bellagio on Friday evening. I’m about 1 hour into the session.

Loose fishy player straddles to $6, 3 people call behind him. I look down at 99 in the SB and make it $40. BB cold calls $40, Straddler folds, 2 people who call the straddle call $40. Button shoves for $220, I have him covered.

What I know about the Button: Poker dealer, seems competent but only bought in for $100, so I doubt he’s a big winning player.

In hindsight I realize, calling the $6 in the SB is probably the best play, but as played, easy call?

opening with 99 is fine. as played, shove. wtf at this buttonclicking, nice game hehe

Yeah, and played you rejam to try to iso. With all the dead money in the middle you are extremely happy flipping here.

I probably just call the first time.

I'm more worried about the BB than I am the Button in this spot as Button is highly unlikely to have a monster which really reduces his better hands a lot. I probably shove unless us and the BB are much deeper.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Also, it's very difficult to give advice without having any reads on the BB, since if he's not a fish I'm thinking 99 is a dog against his range.

It was early in the session, but I could tell at this point it wasn't a huge sign of strength like flatting with JJ or QQ. It was the BB's birthday, he wasn't wasted but having a few drinks.

I would jam but this sucks because everyone behind you is gona call. I'm not sure if this is the right answer but their is so much dead money.

I just call here pre.
When you raise, what are you trying to achieve? Take it down? Build a pot? In these loose passive games I find it very hard to fold out everyone and then I find myself heads up or 3+ ways oop with a bloated pot and a very marginal hand and losing most times.
If you do fold out everyone you pick up a decent little pot but I’d much rather call and see a flop, hopefully flop a set and take down a huge pot.

I am trying to fold out the dead money and get it heads up vs V. I don't like this situation which is why I just call pre.

Hopefully they are scared money

No easy decision here. Honestly, I try to play these tables in the following manner:

Let's imagine you are playing $1/$2 NL hold'em heads-up against the computer. You each get $10k. The computer will never bet or raise and will always call your bets. If you go bust, you get no chance to re-buy. What is the optimal strategy?

Answer: Call every hand PF, check flop, check turn, bet all-in on the river if you have the absolute nuts.

Eventually you'll have the absolute nuts and bust the bot.

Humans are not so extreme, but at live low-stakes NL, they make the following mistakes:
- Pay no attention to the fact that you are a nut peddler
- Pay no attention to your bet sizing
- Focus 100% on their own hand, hand strength and draws
- Don't know the difference between a powerful gutshot straight draw (QJ on a T87 rainbow board) and a risky gutshot straight draw (85 on a 966 suited board)

In other words, when you flop a set, you can absolutely crush them and take so much free money it's not even fair.

Why risk your whole stack pre-flop when the possibility of two callers makes your 99 basically worthless?

It is a +EV play and I have 5 buyins in my pocket

Disagree about the +EV part.

Let's say you get 1 caller: The flop will contain an overcard and no 9 the majority of the time. Pot size is $100 and effective stacks are $220. You lead out for $50 and the one player moves all-in for $70 more. What is your +EV play? Calling is not +EV if your opponent has an overpair as $70 to win $350 is worse than the 10% chance you have the win the pot

Let's say you get more than one caller: The flop will contain an overcard and no 9 the majority of the time. Your opponents may flop combo draws (over pairs combined with a flush / straight draw)

You make money if:
No one calls PF (rare)
Everyone folds flop to continuation bet (this does happen, but at these games, it is rare)
Your opponent doesn't improve and you win at showdown (possible)

One of the five players left in the hand shoves all-in: Let's say their range is 88+, KQo+, JTs+. Their range crushes your 99. Folding costs your $40 while calling is even more -EV.

Thinking that everyone at a 1-3 table is brain-dead seems like a good way to severely minimize your earnings.

This wouldn’t be the optimal strategy if you value your time. The optimal strategy would be one which maximizes bankroll growth by betting a fraction of your stack I proportion to your edge.

Our 99 is far from useless. It is often the best hand and is a significant favorite in equity even if we go four ways somehow. If you lose you reload.

This is a very easy shove. BU’s line is FOS unless the straddles is raising a ton of hands. If he has us beaten, good for him.

I'm jamming? I'm confused by your comments

As the good doctor says above, you're severely underestimating the majority of your opponents if you think this is standard. IMO.

However, I'm still on board with the overlimp / ~setmine play since we'll already getting half the immediate odds we need to setmine and will only need to make up about a PSB on the flop to breakeven. While most of our opponents are likely not brain dead enough to always give us their stacks when we flop a set we should still be able to eke out an ok profit in this spot.

GcluelessNLnoobG