[FeNeF]

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Turn the question around. Why raise 99? There are two big reasons. One, we have a good made hand. Two, everybody else seems pretty weak, and a raise now could either take down the pot now or give us enough FE to follow it up with a lot of CBs and take it down on the flop.

We have a good made hand, sure, but it's a hand with showdown value. Not a lot of big-pot value, unless we improve to a set or better. In some cases we can improve and still not be a great big-pot hand, like when we make a 1-card straight. Think about the sorts of hands that limped in to the pot. Probably high cards, naked aces, smaller pairs and connectors. If the flop comes and pairs one of the high cards, we'll regret having raised PF. If it comes rags, we bet and everyone folds, we won the minimum with our good made hand. Sure we won, and that's fine. But they were correct to fold, and that's not fine.

If we just complete PF, we put ourselves in a position to get to the showdown for the minimum if that's what we want, or start building a pot if that's what we want. But we can wait until the flop to make the choice. Raising PF starts building the pot before we really know what our equity situation will be, which means we are mostly raising for flop FE. If that's so, then 99 might as well be 72.


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Man. I'm reluctant to disagree with such a detailed and interesting post.. but I do. The main reason to raise 99 is because it's likely to be the best hand by a fairly long way. No, we don't know what our "equity situation" on the flop will be, but that shouldn't stop us raising now, where we have a large edge. IMO this consideration trumps all others.

Also, a couple of other things you said strike me as rather odd.

"We have a good made hand, sure, but it's a hand with showdown value. Not a lot of big-pot value, unless we improve to a set or better."

99 doesn't have "big pot value"? If that's true, what does? Only the biggest pairs?

"If the flop comes and pairs one of the high cards, we'll regret having raised PF."

If you raise KK preflop and an ace flops and pairs your opponent, do you regret raising it? Maybe you do, but does that stop you the next time?

"If we just complete PF, we put ourselves in a position to get to the showdown for the minimum if that's what we want, or start building a pot if that's what we want. But we can wait until the flop to make the choice."

If we do hit our set, it's gonna be much, much easier to get stacks in the middle if we've already got a healthy raise and call(s) in the pot.

I realise this post is disjointed and probably confusing. I don't have the ability to present ideas clearly. But I think that completing 99 is a pretty serious mistake here.