$5.50 NLHE STT: Middle pair vs. triple barrel. Good spot for hero call?

Final three of a $5.50 sit n' go, so we were already ITM. With the exception of a couple loose calls, the SB had been playing pretty ABC; even showing a few of his winning hands. The BU/Villain seemed to be playing a little bit aggressively; he'd been caught bluffing once or twice just in the hour that we'd been playing.

Blinds are 100-50 with no antes.

SB - 5,463
BB [HERO] - 2,911
BU [VILLAIN] - 5,126

My hand: 9c 8c

SB posts 50
HERO posts 100
VILLAIN raises to 200
SB calls 200
HERO calls 200

POT: 600, flop: 9h 5c 5d

SB checks
HERO checks
VILLAIN bets 300
SB folds
HERO calls 300

POT: 1,200, turn: As

HERO checks
VILLAIN bets 600
HERO calls 600

POT: 2,400, river: 2s

HERO checks
VILLAIN bets 1,811 (putting me all in)
HERO ???


My read on the situation was that he'd only triple barrel with hands like a 5, with AK-A9 or with complete air. What do you think?

Probably you are right. He c-bet the flop and could get luck with his A in many possibles. But, probably i would fold

I would do check/min-raise the flop and look what happens.

lead the flop, check/raise isn't great as the SPR is pretty low, we can control the pot by simply betting. if we check/raise even to like 7-800 here that's a pretty committing raise, which is fine, but there's an obvious easier and cheaper way to control the pot here.

c/c flop is also fine, but since he's aggressive we kinda have no real idea where he's at.

Fold turn everytime here if he's bluffing well done, even if we're ahead now we have to think about the river before we call, the chances he jams on a bluff and the chances he has to outdraw us as he will generally have 1-2 overs here if he's bluffing.

I think the though of everyone is to be aggressive on the flop.... if he has an overpair or a 9 with a better kicker so be it also with 5... i think try and get the chips in on the flop either get the cooler over with now... get him to fold out his equity or get him to put it in with A high or smaller pocket pairs.