1.20 SNG Pocket 9's

[Steveg1976]

pokerstars Game #16150340830: Tournament #81770658, $1.00+$0.20 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2008/03/21 - 20:07:35 (ET)
Table '81770658 1' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 3: KOAX (1415 in chips)
Seat 4: acesreloaded (4145 in chips)
Seat 5: [MB]SAWDOG (765 in chips)
Seat 6: Steveg1976 (3965 in chips)
Seat 7: WhiteClaws (1935 in chips)
Seat 8: sharkeeey (1275 in chips)
Steveg1976: posts small blind 25
WhiteClaws: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Steveg1976 [9s 9c]
sharkeeey: calls 50
KOAX: folds
acesreloaded: raises 150 to 200
[MB]SAWDOG: folds
Steveg1976: calls 175
WhiteClaws: folds
sharkeeey: calls 150
*** FLOP *** [5s 8d 8h]
Steveg1976: bets 700
sharkeeey: folds
acesreloaded: calls 700
*** TURN *** [5s 8d 8h] [4c]
Steveg1976: Should I be betting here or slowing down to check/call?

 

[Richyl2008]

What are your reads on the preflop raiser? How has he been playing?

 

[pkrook]

He probably has an...

Overpair or AK AQ or something like that. Becareful not to go all in. online poker chasers sometime call and catch!

 

[Richyl2008]

Since you both have large stacks that should give you incentive not to play a big pot here. I would be check calling this on the flop and turn and reevaluating on the river based on his actions. Some people might advocate checkraising the flop, but if you checkraise and he calls you'll have created a large pot where your out of position on the turn and not sure exactly where he's at. If you just check call the flop and turn you will have invested the same amount of chips had you checkraised in the first place, except now your on the river. If you had a shorter stack a reraise preflop or a checkraise on the flop allin would be a much better play imo, since you need to accumulate chips and an overpair is certainly good enough to play aggressively, although you will have to take the particular player into consideration. On a side note, playing in sngs that have a 20 percent rake are not too profitable, unless you are just playing for practice and not for profit. Moving up to the 2.25's would reduce your rake to about 12.5 percent, while moving up to 5.50's would bring it down to 10 percent.