These are some of the situations I get confused at, this is an old hand I played. Should I encourage other players to call by flat calling the 1,000 bet or should I try and isolate heads up?

Isolate, winning this pot is more important than longrun considerations

Lol to even considering flatting.

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Pretend the wheel barrel is the pot

I think there are strong arguments to folding pre as you're kinda short (~16 BBs). Your hand is not as sexy as an A247 double suited or something. That 9 will not come in too handy except for a 678 flop which you would not give you the nut high.

I also fold to the raise pf. That's a hefty price to pay out of your stack with a hand that has a 9 dangler, limited flush potential, and very limited high potential. Looks prettier than it is.

I second (or third) folding preflop. Besides the points already raised, there's 6 people to act behind. If one of them reraises, you'll feel kind of queasy.

Once in the hand, I agree raising to isolate is the thing to do. As long as villain doesn't have A2xx w/flush draw, you're in good shape.

(all these are villain w/o flush draw (fd) unless noted)
vs. AA28 you have .46 ev
vs. AA38 you have .52 ev
vs. A234 you have .66 ev
vs. A34T (w/fd) you have .59 ev
vs. A23T (w/fd) you have .45 ev

If villain opens with wider range, you're in even better shape.
Of course, you have 2 players behind you that have to act, so that has to be taken into account.

-Bryce

The minraise doesn't really commit Hero preflop so I don't think folding is good. If you are waiting for better than this hand you're gonna have like 5bb rather than 14bb pretty soon.

Far better to double up 16bb than a blinded away ministack.

Based on the chip distribution, this seems like a MTT, so the blind jump are less steep than SNGs and go up slower (OP should post the structure next time). I don't think that having 10 BBs at 125/250 is too big of a deal considering that there are never any antes that'll eat you up.

Also, I don't disagree that the A25 combination is worth playing, but the 9 really affects the playability of the hand. Ideally, you'd want the 4th card to be a non-diamond for extra flush outs, or an 8 or lower. If its a J or high, I'm committing myself with a pot-sized raise).

/thread

Regarding folding pre:

This really depends on table conditions. If the table is agro with players behind who like to 3 bet then i fold. Otherwise call is ok.

Raising on the flop is correct to promote your pair of nines

FYP. We´re talking about donkaments here. I agree with everything Lucius Varenus said.

So we are always gonna fold hands like this because we are afraid people are going to reraise behind us, really? its only 1/8 of our stack with ace 2 5 and you even consider folding doesn't make much sense.

I would much rather put in the 400 chips here than let the blinds come around and eat up 300 of my stack. If someone does decide to reraise behind me it then becomes villian dependent. If they do this type of move often then perhaps we gamble or maybe not. If its a good solid player then perhaps we could still find a better spot but the point still remains that i don't think u fold in this spot, especially not because one of your cards is not a monster. I mean the 9 is what gave u the edge to shove instead of call on the flop anyway.

Are you referring to this particular situation (16 BBs @ 100/200) or the nature of O8 games?

You're being very results oriented with this comment. Against three opponents, you have an extremely slim shot at winning the high from the 9 alone, this flop was a miraculous one.

Maybe I'm too nitty in MTTs, but if you look at all the consistent winners, they have an ITM% of 30%. I'm not saying this is optimal or anything, but survival is pretty important. If I was in the BB with this hand where my call closes out the action, I'm calling. By flatting here with 6 to act, you put yourself in an uncomfortable situation when faced with a raise and you have to give away 2 BBs (2/16 = 13% of your stack) or call and gamble. At 100/200, you haven't reached the point where you're forced to gamble just yet.