Two Plus Two Newer Archives - The 99 Preflop SB Debate

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it's not a likely 4 street pot

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yeah i agree, and it's becuase our hand isn't capable of that unless we hit a set. i'm not suggesting it will be potted, but i think vs a smart tricky regular that if we don't show enough strength, he will pounce on it, and i'm not a fan of showing a lot of strength oop, especially when i think i could get value from playing it as a small pot.

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just raise and play poker from there on

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i think a hand such as this when i have defined an opponent we all know to be tricky is not the type of player i want to be playing poker with oop, hence i suggest keeping the pot small. maybe i simply don't like to try to outplay the good players, but i feel if i have spewed a buyin vs a tricky regular, it ends my session way earlier than if i lost a very small amount of value and then focused my attentions on the weaker players at the table.

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Stop speaking in such absolutes. Nearly every one of your posts is along the lines of "I always do this." "What do you do on the turn? (when discussing PF)"

Don't be so static in your play.

Fact of the matter is that 99 plays MUCH better post flop than you seem to think, and plays far better with initiative than without.

If the guy directly to your left is giving you so much trouble, sit somewhere else.

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agreed it is a static approach, but i feel ive learnt a lot last month about not trying to play a set system 100% and instead have some set rules but then if i need to change the rules/adapt, then i do.

i don't think i have the initiative by raising 99 pf becuase given if i'm not planning to bet flop, turn and river, at some point i will show weakness and lose the initiative.

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what you are failing to note is just how often an overcard flops to your dummy hand, meaning you are simply burning money.

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sorry triumph i don't understand, please explain if you could.

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when you limp/call like that if you have tag stats i will put you on a pocket pair and abuse you.

limp/calling can be profitable if used correctly, but inventing a wide range to limp/call is tossing money away. remember, you could've had that blind for free.

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i would like to think the biggest improvement in my game since my 'study time' was the importance of adapting when feeling a player was exploiting, so if i was limping and you were often raising, ill start limp-reraising trash, then good hands.

my concern about 'you could of had that blind for free' is that you'll know im often trying to blind steal, so will often 3bet, or flat call and float on the flop. tricky players are not the ones i want to be looking to be playing oop when my range is so wide imo.

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Does this mean that if you were playing on a HU table and the SB limped, you would check with 99 in the BB because you don't want to play a raised pot with 99 OOP? Because that would be pretty [censored] bad, and it's basically the same thing.

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yeah true, i would def be raising it heads up, but then i'm trying to outplay that 1 opponent, not focus on the fish on my right who has annoyingly folded his button when i look down at 99.

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you realize that saying 99 has 61.5% equity vs whatever is irrelevant unless you plan to raise pf and check every single street

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yeah i realize that, just someone said how strong 99 was, and i feel it isn't given you are only going to win 61.5% of the time against the hand range i gave, and given you are oop vs a tricky opponent, i don't think that is good enough.

anyways, thanks for all the replies, i guess having thought about it for this long, it is not so much a hand specific question, more of the merits of raising into a tricky BB. I feel the cost of being oop vs a tricky player outweighs the benefit of having 99 versus his random hand.