Live Hand With 99

[CoranMoran 0]

I'm retired from poker, so my opinion is useless.Wang

Retired = Bad downswing?--cm

[Shimmering Wang 1]

Retired = Bad downswing?--cm

No no, nothing like that. I just decided poker wasn't a longtime career path I cared to follow, for a few reasons. I don't have the necessary skill set to ever be an elite player, and frankly, I found playing 30-40 hours a week tedious at best, and excruciating at worst. I never thought I'd say so, but I wanted a real job. I still play from time to time, but now I enjoy it a lot more, and the money is completely irrelevant.I was actually running super hot around when I retired...Wang

[cMcMonkey 0]

Our 9s are so vulenrable to so many cards, knocking out the blinds is essential.There is just no reason to allow the J4, Q2 type hands a chance to play.

This is one of the most important points for me.What flop are you hoping for here with the 99? If you're playing "set it or forget it" then you should be folding because you don't have nearly enough people in the pot for that. I don't think that's the case so lets assume you think the 99 will hold up unimproved some amount of time. Aren't your chances of holding up *much* better without the blinds? racing 2 opps is much better than racing 4. SSHE makes a big point that with these middle pairs you either want many people or as few as possible. Even just for that reason, I think raising the 99 is critical pf. But we have some other things going for us, namely a solid image, the ability to read players and position position position. So even if we get an ugly looking flop like KJ4, with our superior position we can gauge the interest ahead of us and make an informed decision. Sometimes that means folding to a bet, sometimes that means betting when checked to. Obviously its going to be much different depending on the players who called ( assuming they did call), and the flop texture, but there's a good chance we can lose at least 1 if not both of them post-flop with well timed bets, or get away from the hand without losing much if we read that we're behind. And there's a *very* good chance we'll get a free card if we want it, on the flop, or even better if we lead the flop we could get a free draw to our 9 on the turn. we lose a lot of credibility and hence a lot of those options don't exist if we just call pf.Calling is *far* inferior IMO, b/c we have a much lower chance of taking the pot down uncontested, and we have no extra information about our opponents.