This was my first time playing live in years.

1/2 NL, table is a fairly diverse mixture of players. Overall the table is on the loose/passive side with most pots being multi-way and frequently getting to showdown.

BB villain is a good TAG who is paying attention and winning. I haven’t seen him get out of line thus far.

Button is a calling station and fairly old. He literally sees 80% of flops and goes too far with any piece of the board.

I’m in MP with 9c9s, I have $150 after buying in for $200 and having failed to top off my stack. I’ve been at the table for 3 hours and my image is tight. Both players cover me.

OTTH:

Folded to me and I raise to $8, calling station button calls, BB villain calls.

Flop: Jh Th 8x ($22 after rake)
BB checks, I bet $15, button calls, BB check raises to $50, Hero....?

I absolutely hated this spot mostly because I didn’t expect it and had no plan for dealing with it.

I played for roughy 8 hours total and this was the most uncomfortable position I found myself in all day. Any thoughts are appreciated.

essentially, nobody really knows for certain what's highest ev when it comes to cb mw pots right now. however, you can break down the 2 separate spots and draw a conclusion on how often you cb combined

doubt 99 is a pure cb if hu vs wide flatter when oop
might be correct to bet range if ip also calls flop too wide and doesn't raise enough

if hu vs bb 99 prob mixes, but if oop is restricted to x/r a wider array of combos because the fish is present, think it's safe to say 99 becomes a pure bet

all in all, cb looks fine, sizing mby a bit large but fine w/e

when facing the x/r, the size oop uses is too small and we got the fish overcall so 0 chance we fold any 99 combos. KQ and even AQ clear calls. fds call and higher eq backdoors Ad9d/Td9d. 2p have to just call and sets/straights raise/gii when the fish is around

My take: BB has a stronger range to do this given that button called already, so I don't think he has any pure bluffs in his range. This makes proceeding more difficult as he has most 2p combos and all straights in his range. Maybe TT and 88 as well...I would suspect that he 3! JJ with some frequency pre so less concerned about that.

Other issue here is that even if we are drawing live, our hand will be easy to see if it comes in with a 4 liner out there. Additionally, we hold no hearts so 3 of our outs might cost us the pot.

I think the decision here is shove or fold given remaining stacks and with all of the above, I think I let it go. Small exception might be if we can see the button is definitely folding, maybe we can call the $35 to see the turn? Nah..bad odds of $102/$35, not even 3-1 when we have only 6 clean outs (and may be drawing dead/to a chop if he happens to hold Q9).

I folded. Hated everything about it though.