Archie: you have 8889K in position OTB with no other info about dead cards and face an UTG opener. Ignoring all other action and assuming the hand is HU, what do you discard if you draw one?

Follow up question, again ignoring any action and drawing 1. If it's 3 way would that influence your decision?

Edit: another follow up question generated by oscillator's reply below... does your decision vary if it's 6 or 8 handed?

Not too easy to quantify removal. Typically if more people are in the pot Ill take the card that seems most live, which you know.

I think lots of nines get trashed, and I'm not sure if theoretically you're supposed to just never fold kings utg 6 handed or if it's too light. I think I differ to pitching kings utg depending on what I block and table conditions, but I could absolutely see that burning money. Either way, I'm just deciding whether or not Kings are in opening range or if its closer to neutral between the two. I think it probably is in range as a population tendency right or wrong.

Kings up is def more inclined to open than nines up, but I think removal of a bunch of folders sees more nines dead overall so I keep the K. If a bunch of people are in the pot I'll probably keep the 9

Question 2:

Im not sure if 3 way 6 handed is my threshold or not. Your decision point would want you in position on both to have a better indication of what their draws look like. You can make assumptions based on open, call vs 3 bet in front of you but people can balance or be unbalanced in weird ways so seeing the draw is really helpful.

Id probably by default not deviate from keeping K unless its 4 ways where my intuition says to deviate, but theres no hard math behind it.

You have asked about D1, and if you do that, keep the Nine despite the reasons Oscillator says (the rest of the deck is as big as the cards folded in front of you so likely Nines are equivalently live, Kings more likely in an opener's hand either as pair or kicker to Aces), but I think mechanically drawing one card is not always a great idea HU.

The Nine is not a significant card, other than the other player in the pot probably doesn't have one, and I think you gain quite a lot of deception by drawing two, assuming you have a known D2 low range OTB and villain can be opening a 3-low. It would help to know villain's draw number to plan the rest of the hand.

I think ignoring other action makes the hand hard to quantify, since D1 makes more sense if you 3b and villain is D2, but some people will still 3b and D2 with Aww wwws etc. so maybe not. If villain D1 then I would love this as a D2 spot, since we'll catch a bet on the flop, can flat, D2 again and raise turn with a scooping hand an awful lot.

You have a lot of flexibility in playing the flop if you're D2 pre, especially if you get led into by a probable low draw. You can raise and D1 repping a strong low draw, pat the turn and get called down pretty light for the high side. An accidental pair is never folding, much less two.

Archie is a weird game because it is so opponent-specific. More experienced players approach hands from the high side, fish will take any three little cards and hop the fence. As the game matures it may tends toward valuing hi hands so much that you can't fool anybody.

Question two. There are a bunch of ways it can be three ways. If somebody flats in front of you, you have an easy value raise OTB pre, and then UTGs response will tell you a lot. If you flat and the BB throws in one chip, that's a different situation and a good reason not to flat. If you 3b and somebody cold calls or 4b then we've got another story in development.

I honestly don't know how to answer this question without being allowed to consider the preflop action.

I keep the 9 because it’s more fun to squeeze a 4 sider

I agree that d1 to the 9 is standard and understand the rationale for sometimes d2.

I can def see keeping the 9 being standard. I do feel that nine removal is more prevalent in hu pots but cant quantify, so I'll differ gut math to the experts.

You might get me to start squeezing Chill

Good to see BSH back in the forums. Now if only he'll continue his blog! (if I can make implore to his ego, it was a really good blog with rare insight into the high stakes mix world with fun big hands too)

Thanks Z.

Thought about this some more. Agree that my removal logic is flawed and I'm on team keep the 9