100nl 6max - 99 BvB

Pretty much just arrived at this table, villain is unknown.

What next, is this an obvious fold?

poker stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $110.75
SB: $99
Hero (BB): $101.50
UTG: $234.30

Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (BB)
2 folds, SB raises to $4, Hero raises to $14, SB raises to $32, Hero?

That's a fold vs. unkown. I prefer a flat-call instead of 3-bet. I'd rather 3-bet 22-66.

Chris_TC said:

I'd rather 3-bet 22-66.

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For fold equity and because it's easier to fold them to a four-bet? I play the same, but am curious if I might've missed some aspect.

Chris_TC said:

TI prefer a flat-call instead of 3-bet. I'd rather 3-bet 22-66.

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Seriously?

Why do we want to just flat here with a hand that beats large proportion of his range? Surely were just burning $$$ flatting here letting him get ahead?

Jagsti said:

Seriously?

Why do we want to just flat here with a hand that beats large proportion of his range? Surely were just burning $$$ flatting here letting him get ahead?

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If we 3-bet, where's our profit coming from? We stand to win his 4BB, but we put ourselves in a big pot with reverse implied odds when we see the flop; where our opponent has a much better chance of playing perfectly than we do.

I don't think this is a big leak either way, but the hands that call us will probably play correctly against us a very large portion of the time after the flop comes. What's almost certainly going to happen is that we're going to bet the flop when it's checked to us. Or?

And if we c-bet, we're in a situation where any overcard hands to ours that called the 3-bet will be able to continue when we're beat and fold when they're beat, which is a terrible situation for us. Some of the time, we'll get calls from worse hands (lower pocket pairs) on a flop that doesn't look scary to him, but lower PPs are a fairly small part of his range, and I think we can squeeze more value out of them by letting villain keep the initiative.

There's some fold equity involved in 3-betting 99, because we get to fold hands like QJo and KT and whatnot (that are mostly a coinflip versus us) but the fold equity for that is only a percentage of $4.

I'm by no means certain about these plays and I haven't filtered any results in HEM (which I probably should), but generally speaking, I think he has us caught in a spot where we probably have the best hand but we won't make a lot when we do, and we'll lose a lot more when we don't.

Unless villain is flatting lots of 3-bets, then 3-betting 99 turns our hand into a bluff. It plays well against his stealing range, but poorly in 3-bet pots. We have position, and a hand that can easily make a set/mid-pair, so lets play a flop.

The only time I 3-bet stuff like KQ, AJ, 99 for value is when villain is flatting a lot of my 3-bets with stuff like QJs, A5s, JTs, 88. And those villains are usually pretty rare. But once in a while you'll encounter those stubborn players who won't give up after a steal attempt & will only flat call instead of 4-bet bluffing.

But yeah, in general, we want to be 3-betting a hugely polarized range vs. the average dude. So hands that have little value, and monsterzzzz.

F Paulsson said:

For fold equity and because it's easier to fold them to a four-bet? I play the same, but am curious if I might've missed some aspect.

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Mainly because they have less value postflop. With 33, you're not really gonna like any flop without a 3 in it.

Jagsti said:

Seriously?

Why do we want to just flat here with a hand that beats large proportion of his range? Surely were just burning $$$ flatting here letting him get ahead?

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Most of his range isn't going to outflop us too often. His range in the SB should be reasonably wide, and even two overcards will outflop us only 1/3 of the time.
Basically, 99 is strong enough to see a flop with, let him c-bet and go from there.

Chris_TC said:

That's a fold vs. unkown. I prefer a flat-call instead of 3-bet. I'd rather 3-bet 22-66.

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yeah, this is a good point. although i'd definitely 3bet 77 as well, it's gonna be really hard to play OOP after the flop. and maybe 88 too. 99 is close to the bottom of where i like flat-calling pretty often, unless there's a dynamic where i think there's a lot of value in 3betting

i also flat TT from the blinds a lot, and sometimes JJ, although here, 4-handed there's probably too much value in 3betting JJ not to. 99 and TT are good deceptive hands because, even though it makes so much sense not to, so many villain will expect you to have 3bet them preflop. so they're very deceptive and you can make appropriate calldowns on a lot of boards. also it protects the times you defend your blinds with non-paired big cards and stuff

Agree that this is a call preflop. We're in position, have a hand that crushes his range, but we don't want to be building a huge pot with it. So just take the flop, willing to call at least a cbet to any flop. As mentioned, 3-betting kills us, because it not only turns our hand into a bluff, but given that we're willing to do this means that our opponent isn't that bad 4-bet bluffing us. But against an unknown you can't know he's 4-betting light so I think this is a fold. With more history a shove wouldn't be terrible, but against an unknown this is an easy fold imo.