Attack of the NINES

I think 99 is too good to bluff. Imo after xx turn x river we win comfortably most of the time by checking back. Idk what better hands villain both folds here and gets here with. Like, JTs? In my experience the 3b calling range OOP is probably weighted towards small pocket pairs, which we beat anyway, and we dont really need to risk extra overbet in case villain is getting tricky with a suited ace or decides to station with something like JJ.

I think lots of micro players will still have way too many QQ/JJ here so that's the main target. KT, QT, JT also all in range.

We have SDV vs.... 77? T9 that we block? Sometimes weaker pairs but they are much less likely in this formation i think. To me it seems like we x/x and win much less EV vs that than this bluff will make weeding out the upper midrange. Depending on if they fold of course.

You have sdv against any unpaired hand that doesn't bluff, and some worse pairs. This line seems to get looked up a lot too.

Isn't that EV realised either way? we have a good unblocker combo that is probably our weakest pair, and we can credibly rep the runout, not using these combos in a probably overfolded spot is at best non optimal play

99 will lose here quite often I think. At least at the micros. It seems worth at least considering a punt imo

Fair enough

At what betsize do people think QQ folds here? 1.5x, 2x? Jam?

Suspect jam is going to get overcalled more than a smaller sizing. Less than pot seems too tempting

I personally realized that I was making way more money preflop by calling 99 there instead of 3betting (my 3bets are actually losing money in these positions with 99).
Flop is not a range bet IMO. You get called by all broadways and pairs 8 and above. Your set is poisonous against QJ and 76. This is THE hand in your range that would most like to check.
Turn can be bet or check at this point.
River makes no sense. People are passive at micros, which both mean you have showdown value and villain has Ax in his range. Bet check bet is overcalled at micros. River bets are the most called overbets from my experience. Blockers don't matter that much IMO here, but you block the hands that you want villain to fold (T9, 99, 98).

I don't think it's an overfolded spot to begin with and UTG is still pretty uncapped. People are likely going to overfold the flop and UTG is already usually going to be pretty tight preflop.

I would bet turn somdtimes.
River play seems bad you have SDV and this sizing is random, raping only strong Ax that checks bad turn.

Interesting hand, I am wondering whether it was better to bluff the river or check back for showdown value.

When you bet 40bb on the river and UTG calls you, your hand will probably have ~8.5% equity against their calling range. So definitely not a value bet but you mentioned it was a bluff.

As a bluff with almost zero equity, you are betting 40bb to win ~71bb, which means you need them to fold 58% of the time to be profitable assuming 5% rake.

My model estimates that villain will fold ~73% of the time! So overall, the EV of your bet as a pure bluff is roughly +10bb.

Also if you're curious, when villain does call, the top 5 hands in their range are likely to be:

QQ: 16%
AQ: 14.8%
JJ: 13.4%
KK: 9.8%
KT: 6.4%

But even though we can see that the 'bluff' was profitable, I'm wondering if it would have been more profitable to check back.

If you checked back the river, then my model estimates your equity with 99 would be ~37%. Which means the EV of checking back is roughly +10bb.

It seems like the EV of turning it into a bluff or checking back for showdown value are almost equal. Though because they are almost equal EV, it seems like checking back would have lower variance which might be something to consider. These are obviously all just predictions from my model but hopefully they are insightful 😀

EDIT: One last thing, but you were asking about whether you should have jammed on the river. I ran the same scenario through my model but with an 80bb bet on the river and villain will fold ~81% so they are still overfolding however the EV is roughly +9bb so it's actually a bit worse than the size you chose.

If they do call your jam, then the top hands in their range would be:

AQ: 21%
AK: 10%
AJ: 10%
QQ: 7%
JJ: 6.5%
KK: 6%

So you can see that they are folding out a good portion of their overpairs to your 99 when you jam, however they are still making calls sometimes with them, and overall I don't think the jam folds out enough to make it better than a 40bb bluff size or even just checking back river.

Can you run it for a block sizing like b25?

Good question! I'm assuming you meant a b25 from the IP player (hero) in this spot?

I re-ran the hand, and instead used a 7.4bb bet from IP player.

Now, villain will fold 30%, call 60%, and raise 10%.

When they call us, we actually have ~17% equity against their calling range. The top hands in their calling range are:

QQ: 24%
JJ: 20%
KK: 10%
KT: 7%
JT: 5%

So overall, the EV of betting ~25% pot as IP player is roughly +5.8bb.

So it looks like betting 25% pot is actually worse than checking or overbetting. We would be losing ~4bb in EV by doing that.

Hopefully you found that interesting! 😀

Agree'd 😉

Cool, thanks.

If I'm planning on bluffing, I'm barelling each street. As played, think this is getting called a ton. If I was going to bet, I'm probably slightly overbetting like you did, but to 35. No difference between 35 and 40 other than you're risking less.

I agree with the poster above, I don't see the point in betting on the flop. You fold out all the hands you beat and you get called or raised by hands that crush you or have good equity anyway.

I see the point of trying to fold out QQ and JJ but they would fold to a 75% pot bet on the turn, and if they call you still have your gutshot. If you get called again and don't get there on the river you will have an easy give up anyway, so building a medium pot out of position is not that terrible, you won't face a tough decision.

On the river if they had a strong hand they would most likely bet it, your line seems very suspicious but I don't know what they can do about it. I would fear the "screw this I call with KQ" effect but I fear everything.

The solver does validate some flop checking tbf.

Also think a DB is better looking at it. I always remember to use my broadways but forget about the little guys