[tigerite]

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In my mind this is a push or fold play but there are so many people left to act behind me.

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Why can't you limp? I'm not saying I would, but a limp may make the hand easier to navigate. You could possibly get a push from someone behind you trying to steal the blimps+your limp with a marginal hand that you can pick off. Or if perhaps there is another limp you can get a peak of the flop before committing your stack.

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99 really is not the kind of hand to be "trapping" with like this. If anyone raises or pushes then it's just not a nice situation to be in, we're either slightly ahead or way behind (except for the odd occasion they have 77 or 88 I suppose). Plus it may very easily produce a whole load of other limps, and then we're going to be facing a flop OOP with at least a third of our stack's worth of chips in the pot, with the possibility of people having hit sets, having draws, some part of the board (especially a problem with 99 because so much of the time an overcard will be on the flop), and as always, the chance to be bluffed off the best hand. It would be impossible, IMHO, to play well enough post-flop against even just the blinds here long-term to gain enough $EV from what we lose from pushing. Remember a push and the blinds will almost certainly fold stuff like KT, QJ, QT which when we're facing a flop of AT5 is going to be just terrible for our 9's should we limp.

Limping is really, really bad here.