99 hu, scary flop

[Milagro]

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Bet. It becomes even more important that you bet (or check/raise) close/marginal hands as you move up in limits.

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What he said.

To check/fold or bet/fold here is -EV. To check/call is about about breakeven at home but is also -EV when playing with a rake (though not nearly as bad as folding). Evaluating the hands that a preflop tight player would keep when bet into on this flop I see you have about 50% equity in this pot. So (with no more betting) you will win about half the time and you will lose about half the time. Players that are consistent winners and thus "move up in the limits" find ways to turn this situation into a positive EV situation <u>by making the villians fold a better hand</u>! Among the possible holdings villian has that he might call on the flop are a diamondless AT, KQ, KTs, QJs, JTs. All legit calling hands for a tight UTG+1. To this point I would say that I personally like the check/raise line because even if he makes a crying call on the turn he hopefully folds on the river unimproved. The other advantage of a check/raise is you can most of the time fold if he make it 3 bets (at least at the micro-limits) because that will usually mean he has you beat badly and was trapping you on the flop.

For those interested here are two examples of holdings that I used to decide that the pot equity here is about 50%:

Tight: TT-99,ATs,Ad9d,KQs,KdJd,QJs; Hero's equity = 42%

Loose but "reasonable": TT-77,ATs,Ad9d,KQs,KdJd,KTs,QTs,JTs,ATo,KQo; Hero's equity = 56%.

On the other hand, I am on my 3rd vodka so I could be full of sh**. Cheers.