V1 SB $287
V2 BB $290
V3 UTG +1$500
V4 HJ $900
Hero button $850

V1 perhaps a nit? certainly tight. new to table, has not yet bet or called anything in three orbits.
V2 reg whale. almost as poor a player as V4. makes random $10 pre-flop raises. calls with any piece of the flop or turn. will continue to buy in until 2-3k is lost.
V3 super aggressive, continues raise/reraise pre-flop to isolate.
V4 terrible calling station ATM; just binked a 2 outer to double up their buy-in.
Hero wealthy rec player, fairly tight, makes folding errors, trying to improve.

V3 calls $3
V4 calls
Hero calls 9s9c (should have raised? afraid of getting reraised by V3)
V1 calls
V2 raises $40.

V3 folds
V4 calls
Hero calls (though V2's raise is unusually high for them, they are just as capable of going broke as V4)
V1 calls

pot, $162

flop; Qd Tc 7h

check to Hero, bets $70. I assume I will fold out V1 and be either heads up vs. V2, or in position vs. two very bad players going to the turn.
V1 calls
V2 calls
V3 folds

pot $372

turn 9d

V1 jams $174
V2 tank all-in $187. V2 hesitation real. certainly drawing.



Hero call or fold?

Where to start. Raise pre. Fold to the $40 raise. Dont even consider leading flop and fold to a bet. Obviosuly you have to call the turn with $700 in the pot and only calling $187. Maybe V1 has 1010 but this is the spot you are in, and getting decent odds to fill up.

thanks for the post. agree, I should have raised pre.

i call the $40 BB raise from the button because V4 called. if they had folded, i would fold.

i bet flop to fold out the SB (V1). SB had an opportunity to raise pre and another opportunity to re-raise the BB (V2). they instead check/called, so I don't think they have a good pair. That they called $70 with two to act suggested to me a draw (KJ or J9, or a pair and a backdoor draw).

When the 9d comes on the turn, and they jam, I think it is more likely a nutty hand than a semi-bluff .

Fold preflop, and don't lead flop. The flop lead is the most bizarre thing in the hand for me. You have an underpair to two board cards that can reasonably hit several of these clowns' ranges and you lead? Why?

As played once you turn the set you have to GII. By the descriptions they can have tons of things you beat that they are jamming for value, and that is without considering their semi or pure bluffs. Not a difficult turn decision imo.

The $3 flat is really bad.
You should fold to the $40, but, this call is less bad than the $3 flat.
The flop bet is really really bad. Betting small 4ways on a wet board with a 0 equity hand. This makes no sense.
The turn decision is incredibly easy. Obviously call. You should happily put money after you got bailed out by the miracle 2-outer. You can be ahead of both players, and if V has KJ you still have outs to improve.

If one player flips over KJ and the other has AK or some draw you still have to call given the pot odds.

V1 can’t have QQ given preflop, so the only hand you don’t want to see is TT. But TT would probably raise flop. So discount that. KJ is also simply way more likely than TT combinatorially (16 combos versus max 3).

Turn is a very clear call.

thanks for the input.

yes, flop bet is very bad vs. two calling stations and SB. trying to fold out the SB is not a good enough reason to bet here.

SB had AdTd. BB showed AJo. i folded. more weak tight fail.

river was Jc. nice hand BB.

Nice troll?

What? You folded??? Why? Seriously.

Even if V showed you the nut straight you have direct odds to call for a bit on the river?!?!?!?

agree, i should have called in that spot. i butchered the hand.

I wasn't in a good frame of mind at that point. I was up a couple hundred after four hours of short-handed play against players more accomplished than me. The game finally got good about thirty minutes prior (two very weak players with deep pockets, and one nit), and I was annoyed that I had to leave. That was my second to last hand. I actually looked down at my stack and decided I'd prefer to rack up the win, then call the bet, and go home only up a few bets.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Definitely raise preflop. 99 is a good hand. By the sound of things I would raise a little bigger than normal to maybe $20 to try and isolate and get it heads up with one of these fish cakes. By raising a little larger you can maybe dis-incentivize the v4 to just calling your raise instead of making a massive pre flop raise to begin with.

Definitely not sure sure why you would ever lead flop into multiple opponents with a hand as weak as 3rd pair on a wet board. This is an easy check.

Once you hit your set on the turn you gotta go with the hand no matter what when stack depths are taken under consideration.

All of this could be avoided preflop if you had raised yourself initially.

Good luck to you!

I don't have a problem with the preflop overlimp. But I think this deep against whales I'd be cool with a juicer raise so long as V3 isn't going to jump all over that and 3bet (which would suck).

Calling the hugenourmous preflop raise is kinda meh. We're getting terrible IO against the raisers stack. So we're really banking on getting V4's stack. The problem is that V4 would literally have to be the worst player in the pool to want to get in 3x the raiser's stack once his stack is in and protecting the pot.

4ways with 2 overcards I just check this back. Nitty V1 is still in the mix and could easily be sandbagging a monster by checking to the raiser. And V2 could easily still have very decent equity (gutshot + overs, etc.) or sandbagging himself.

We're getting almost the odds we need if V1 shows us a straight, but he won't always have that (77 is a real possibility, as are perhaps some tarping two pears). So I call the turn.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I can't seem to edit my original post, but:

ETA#1: Overlimping preflop is hardly horrendous. Fair, it may not be the best move. But we're in a hand in position with whales deep, I mean, lol @ this being remotely bad.

ETA#2: It is hard to tell by some responses, but do some feel we donked this flop into the field? Cuz we didn't, we bet it after the nit check, the raiser checked, and the final guy in the hand also checked. I wouldn't have bet this flop even given this action, but it isn't completely horrendous (as there is at least some reason to believe we actually may have the best hand), imo.

GcluelesshorredousplaynoobG

I think limp pre. is whatever, depending on table etc. it's somewhere between fine and a good mix. Sure, raising is also fine and probably prefered in general but it's not the end of the world to not do it.
After the BB raise I think everything is on the table, folding is easy and low variance but probably slightly worse option. Calling isn't that bad, but we need to tread carefully multiway if we don't hit a set where we can have the best hand a bunch. 3bet vs. a BB raising too much and taking a share of a bunch of dead money, or just getting folds from everyone can also feel like christmas.

Betting flop would be whatever if we'd raised pre. esp. so if it was less than four ways, as it is I hate it ... as we see people aren't folding a good T or even overcards to a T, so we have no idea where we are and even our best turn card leaves us not knowing if we are in front.

Turn is lol bad, KJ is 100% in both ranges (and J8 in SB at least) but it's not like V4 shoved 900 in (not sure where V4 folded, though) so we just shrug and call. Also people think QT, or worse, is the nuts here too much to be folding 99 without much better reads.



I remember hearing Doug Polk once saying something like "at low stakes just never fold sets, no matter what" ... and while I thought it was bad advice at the time I think he'd just seen too many HH like this.

Also 99 is not bottom set.

Those claiming it is a call if shown KJ, would you actually make the call? My math gives us a final pot of $920. We would have put in $187 to win that pot and need to win 20% of the time based on my calculations. Our hand vs KJ without a FD wins 22% of the time. Feels like a super marginal call and a spot where I fold knowing I am beat.

Obviously knowing what these opponents showed up with just solidifies that at low-limit with humans you just never know what your opponent can turn over. Thus with the cards face down this is an easy call.

Thanks for the reply. In a vacuum, sure, an easy call, and in this situation, I should have called.

At the time, I did not think SB would be semi-bluffing into this calling station. In retrospect the bet makes sense. If V2 had a pair, they would have bet the flop. If V2 had a 'monster' V2 would check raise my flop bet. Therefore, V2 is always drawing, and the 9 is highly unlikely to fit V2's BB raise range. V1's jam is aimed at me. V1 assumes the 9 could not have helped me, and is using it as a scare card to push me off whatever I am limp/calling preflop, betting flop. Against a better player, V1's jam would have failed.