[john kane]

okay cool, i think djsensei sums it up pretty well i guess.

my only point is that if your up against a smart tricky opponent who is playing your hand strength (rather than his own cards), then you have to have confidence with 99 come the river. personally i don't think i would have confidence come the river, given it is only slightly better than a mid pair and given that if i had raised preflop his calling range numerically gets higher (given he calls all broadways and not 26 for example).

thus given i can't have confidence i am therefore will likely check (on turn or river), giving him an opportunity to bet. i then have no idea whether he is betting as a bluff or for value, and that is the situation i want to put my opponent in, not the other way round.

i think the general answers against that were that you can then introduce check-raising turns, firing all 3 streets, but whilst that would work, i prefer to concentrate my big pots against the worse players, as i find i'll end out getting in an ego war against some tough regular rather than extracting maximum value out of a 50/4 i'm playing on another table. maybe it's a symptom as im now trying to 11 or 12 table, but then this new style has been working, whereas my wars against the regulars style i used in july was only slightly better than breakeven. sure you can play aggressively vs regs without getting in an ego war, but i do think it does affect our play.

thanks again for the replies.