99 w/ Ace on flop

[Lethe]

4/8 live game. A bit tighter than usual, but that just means 3-5 to a flop instead of 5-8 like normal.

Villain probably plays about 30-40% of his hands, and is a pretty good hand reader. He's more aggressive than most at the table, but definitely not overly so. I haven't seen him get too far out of line, although he has called down light against certain players he lost to in the past who showed down winning trash hands.

My image is very rockish as I've been pretty card dead and the only hand I've shown down is KK. The other players at the table have commented on this, villain even going as far as to call me "the rock".

2 loose/bad limpers, villain limps, I raise 99 on the button. Big blind calls, limpers call.

Flop (10sb): A54r
Checked to me, I bet, folded to villain who c/r.

Note that after playing for about 2.5 hours, this is the first time I've seen villain c/r.

What's my plan for the rest of the hand? Call and see what he does on the turn? Reraise and fold to a cap? Fold now? If I call and he bets out, then what?

[mikeca]

At this limit most players will play any Ax, even for a raise. Most of the time somebody has an Ax, which means 99 does not look very good on this board. You are basically drawing to two outs.

My guess here is villain has A5 or A4, maybe 54. I would probably call, and fold on the turn if the villain bet out and I didn’t improve. I don’t know if that is the best line though. Maybe it is better to check the flop through and let the Ax bet the turn, and then fold.

[Lethe]

I think checking the flop would be pretty bad, since there's a good chance I have the best hand w/ only one overcard on the board.

Yes, it's true that any ace does seem to get to the flop in these games, but these players will probably find a reason to call with their paired up 5's, 4's and straight draws as well. When it is checked to me in position I think this bet is a nobrainer.

[Scarmiglio]

The bet is fine. The check raise is bad news. Calling his c/r is up to you, but if he thinks you're a rock then you are drawing to 2 outs. I prefer to put as little money in the pot drawing thin as possible.

Call the flop if you must. Don't reraise as villain is highly unlikely to fold his ace. Fold the turn if bet into. I would check the turn if checked to.

[mikeca]

As an experiment with PokerStove, I put 9c9h vs 9 random hands on a board of Ad 5c 4s. The 99 hand had 6.9% pot equity and the random hands had 10.3% equity. On the other hand, against 3 random hands, 99 has a 29.9% equity and the random hands have 23.4%.

This leads me to believe that at a table where lots of players are playing any Ax, 99 is a very weak hand on this board. At the point it is checked to you on the flop, there are about 7 sb in the pot after the rake. If most players at the table will play any A, I think this c-bet is –EV.

On the other hand this may be bad for your table image to check the flop here. It may make you look too rockish, and make players less likely to call your bets in the future. The question of whether you should bet at flops like this is something I have been wondering about recently.

[Lethe]

The difference is, I'm not against 9 opponents, I'm against 3 opponents. If I was against 9 then I wouldn't be betting as almost certainly one of them is checking to me with an ace.

In this case there is a much smaller chance that one of them holds an A. If one or more of them calls me then I guess I just have to play some poker on the turn/river (possibly betting turn, checking through river).

Edit: Also, if even one of them folds the flop, my equity goes way up on the turn. Betting the flop in this situation is best not only because I probably have the best hand, but because it folds out hands that have outs against me and just overall makes the hand much easier to play.

*Edit2: If you had KK-TT would you check through this flop?

[Lanzalot]

This kind of a toughie, Lethe, but I think if I were in your situation, I would be suspicious. You've got a guy that has actually overtly commented on how tight you are. The way you have described him, he would seem to exhibit at least some degree of situational awareness as to hand reading. To add to that he c/r you when he knows it is now heads-up b/w the two of you. His c/r came not from early position, where it could reasonably be read as a hand protection play with an Ax. He's to your right, was acting after 3 checks and how could he be so sure you were going to bet the flop and not check through? Maybe I'm not expressing it well, but I think I could see him having something besides an Ace here. I might reraise him to find out how much he likes his hand. The rest of the hand would be very dependent on how he reacts, obviously.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the description you gave of the Villain, but just my .02. There are some players at the lower limits that know how to exploit tighter play, and the player need not necessarily play tight themselves, in fact, it's more likely than not that they don't.

[KitCloudkicker]

checking this flop is inexcusable. the pot is big and we CANNOT let a hand like KQ/KJ/JT hit for free where they would have automucked to a flop bet.

Anyways call the flop CR and fold turn UI.

[mikeca]

[ QUOTE ]
The difference is, I'm not against 9 opponents, I'm against 3 opponents.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is where applying PokerStove results to real situations is tricky. No table has 9 opponents calling with any two cards, but it is not unusual to have 4-8 players at a table that will play any Ax preflop, at least for 1 small bet, and many times even after a raise. So 6 people folded preflop at your table in this hand, but did any of those players that folded have Ax? If your opponents will always call with Ax, you need to look at the odds that any of your 9 opponents at the table had Ax, not the odds that the 3 who actually called have Ax.

If I did the odds calculations right, at a 10 player table, with one A on the board and none in your hand, none of the other players will have been dealt an A preflop 22.5% of the time. That would seem to justify the c-bet here, but with 99 you will still lose frequently when none of your opponents has an A. I tried 99 against 3 opponents that played any broadway, any pair or any suited, except I removed all of the hands with A. The 99 hand had 28.3% equity vs 23.9% for the other 3 hands. Even in the 22.5% of the time that your opponents don’t have an A, you still are going to win only about 1/3 of the time. This means you are only going to win 7.5% of the time. This still makes the c-bet here –EV.

When you have KK you will win more often when your opponents do not have an A, so the c-bet makes more sense in that case.

[mikeca]

[ QUOTE ]
checking this flop is inexcusable. the pot is big and we CANNOT let a hand like KQ/KJ/JT hit for free where they would have automucked to a flop bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

This sounds like a good reason for c-betting the flop. When none of your opponents has an A, you lose most of the time because they pair a card higher than 9 on the turn or river, although I am not sure all those hands will really automuck to a flop c-bet, some of them will.

I agree that I normally do c-bet in this case, I am just wondering why it is the best play.