Preflop War - Is nines fine?
1/3 8h
(600) UTG 15 - loose, aggressive reg
(350) UTG+1 call - passive station
(500) HJ raise 40 - newbie fish
(450) BTN cal
Yeah, on the east coast, 3!s at 1/3 from randoms are a high percentage AA/KK, but some regs 3! reasonably wide. 4!s deep at 1/3 or even 2/5 from regs are usually AA/KK. I have seen a reg iso 5! a short stack shove with AQ, figuring the flat caller of the 3! didn't have that much.It might be better playing people who 4! light, as could get action for QQ+ etc. Played some 1/2 in
I mostly play in S Florida Miami area, and there are a fair amount of nitty regs, but overall the games are really aggressive preflop.
I'd fold preflop. Aggro UTG raiser could perhaps widen his 4bet range a bit with this massive amount of dead money (and those times are a disaster). It's not impossible that passive UTG+1 is going for the 'ol backraise. We're not guaranteed to go super multiway in a 3bet pot. We'll be OOP (which will hurt our postflop IO a bit). And against the shallower stacks our IO ain't even all that awesum for this massive price.
Gseemslikeathinspotatbest,imoG
For sure in theory we are supposed to just fold. IMNSHO if your default is to call it's probably bad. Also think it's bad if UTG opened to 40 and we over-over-over-call OOP.
Saying that with this specific action/lineup where newbie fish 3bets, I think it's much less likely UTG/UTG+1 4bets ... so call is probably better than fold. 4betting ourself would be a punt, for the same reasons we expect UTG not to 4bet. We do need some reads that UTG has a clue and isn't going to punt 4bet, also even with a clue he's in a bad spot with AKo. We do also hit sets and lose, or hit sets and don't make +400 so it's technically bad ... so I don't think it's an amazing spot, but I'd call.
Also your description of BTN was "loose, passive reg" but he cold called a newbie 3bet vs. UTG with AJo next to act with half the table to act behind him. I don't care that he's on the BTN, would snap label him moby dick calling station.
If BTN had raised the fish, I would have found an easy fold. But when he called and I didn’t expect to get raised, I jumped in.
This thread has been helpful in understanding that even with the reasoning above, I should fold. Facing five players with 3 that have shown strength, the odds are against me.
I really need to get better at folding 99 and TT
