Hi,

Live game at local casino.

Full ring table, 1-2 pounds blinds.

I'm new at live games and to be honest I've been doing donk moves like limping UTG with A,T. I'm rarely 3 betting and whem I get a hand people push me out of the hand.

In this hand, UTG thight player (huge stack 350 pounds) raises to 6 and I min raise to 12 with 9,9. Everyone else folds

Before I continue, what should I do with 9,9 in EP?

Flop Q,10,K.

Obviously I folded after a 18 pounds bet.

I guess this was the only correct move or could I have tried to save the hand going all in with my 55 pounds??

Help for the donk please

No need to raise the UTG bettor here in EP, you can just call, set mine for a 9 on the flop. Fold is correct since you missed. There are 3 overcards to your 9s and he is betting out. At this live level bets usually mean what they say, you are crushed by everything he likely holds! Middle pairs are hard to play if you miss your set. If you were seriously planning to play or shove, then your style leans toward the donkish IMHO GL sir

Raise PF Limping isn't a disaster or anything but you have a pretty strong hand/ i guess if you don't know what to do on these types of flops you may be better off limping and keeping the pot smaller though. c/f flop.

Shoving that flop for 55 after he bets 18 is lighting money on fire.

With only 27 BBs left, I think I'm playing this hand fairly aggressively unless UTG is extremely tight (and not one to raise in EP with anything other than big pairs). In general this shortstacked, I think our goal should be to get in all the money preflop or on the flop at the latest. I raise to $25 so I can shove the flop.

Setmining with this small a stack (we'd be putting in more than 10% of our stack) plus having no idea what is going to happen behind us (are there going to be other callers, is someone going to 3bet, etc.) is kinda meh, IMO.

As played I think I would also fold the flop. Villain won't be able to fold anything if we shove due to our small stack size at this point (which would barely be a minraise).

GcluelessNLnoobG

3 betting an utg player you classify as tight with 99 from early or middle position is probably not going to work out very often. Middle pairs always leave you with a tough decision, so keep it small and set mine away. c/f that flop regardless.
Do not min-raise ever. It is like an invitation for callers. When you raise make it 3-4 times the original raisers bet. You want to be heads up or three way with pocket pairs or ak type hands.

Call pre. Your min raise just bloats the pot. Against a tight EP raiser you are set mining against a premium hand (big aces and big pairs). Why increase the price you're paying pre to see the flop to try to stack this V? If you actually want to raise because you are in a different situation where you think your hand could be good it's probably a raise to like 25-30 with a shove all in on most flops given your stack. It's never a min raise.

That flop is an easy check fold. It hits so many hands your opponent could have (big aces and big pairs).

Don't shove all in on the flop. You are getting called here a ton given their range and you are almost drawing dead. No guarantee the jack is even alive for you given the likelihood villain has an ace.

There is some terribad advice ITT.

--Stack sizes? Sounds like you either have 67 (55 + 12) or 85 (55 + 12 +18) preflop, but I am guessing it is 67.

--In either case, you CANNOT set mine an open for 3BB profitably over time with a stack of 30-ish BBs. Especially from EP, as there are times when we will get 3bet and have to let go of 10% of our stack without seeing a flop.

--I agree with all that the minraise is awful.

--With 99 and such a short stack, I am really mixed on what to do here. If our read is correct that the player opening from UTG is tight, our 99 does not play well against his opening range from UTG. If we assign a rage of TT+, AQo+, we have equity of less than 32%. Due to our stack size, we have little to no FE, and we still have players acting behind who can wake up with a hand.

--You can't really do more than a minraise without committing yourself to any flop, and shoving maybe folds out 1-2 hands you are flipping with (not even sure of that) and you have poo-poo equity against a tight player's calling range.

--I am boarding the nit express and saying to fold 99 here, and top up for the next hand. 30 BB stacks suck.

--If the player UTG was loose and there was some dead money in there, I could see advocating a shove. In this spot, get out of there.

Big Skip

Different Styles Different folks ..the small 6 lb UTG raise can be set mined IMHO quite well because at this level (1-2) he will likely get another caller or two and if a big 3 bet comes he can fold with minimum loss! He is getting a little short on chips and he needs to not commit too much, but actully you are absolutely right that the real answer is to reload to max and have more options than this, maybe BR issues preclude this player from doing that.

10% of our chip stack is not a minimal loss.
IF he were on the button or CO, knew how many limpers were in the hand, and lessened the chance of a 3bet, THEN I could agree that set mining here isn't so bad.
But right now we only have 11-1 max on our money, and still have the chance of a 3bet behind. Set mining in this spot is -EV.

Your points all have merit with me, I guess I am just used to the 1-2 play where there are lots of callers and not that much light 3 betting so the set mining IMHO is not as bad a play as you suggest a lot of the time. At higher levels or with lots of good players at this level your points are spot on ! He needs more chips.

I'm with Skippy on this one (preflop is either raise/commit or fold, depending on what we think of UTG's range). 11:1 is way too thin to setmine in MP.

Calling off a large percentage of a shortstack preflop with a speculative hand is one of the easiest ways to spot a poor player at the table.

The min raise pre flop is very bad. Why not try to flop a 9 for $6? Why risk $6 more? If V shoves after your min raise are you folding or calling? The majority of flops are going to have overs to 99. Are you continuing if these overs come?

Buy in bigger, I personally will not play if I don't have 100BB's in front of me.

Flat the raise pre flop and hit a 9.

Fold the flop and buy more chips.

You both definitely have math and higher level poker thinking on your side here. I just think the situation here has some merit for a flat and see a flop if possible. As to "poor " I guess I am one ( no offense) but in this case "poor" also refers to the OPs BR LOL Been there a lot too. Nice discussion rather than mindless flaming.

Min raising must be common in England. Seems like every post that involves pounds also involves an awful minraise.

99% of the time, the minraise is not the right play.

Grunch.

Assuming u have 33bb, either 3 bet bigger so you can get it in now(or have less than pot sized bet on flop) or fold pre i guess