Raising preflop w/ 99

[Peter Harris]

lol! [not an english idiom either]

back on thread, i limp with 99. given a statistic cited to me before that "70% of the time an overcard falls against JJ" (that i have been too ignorant to validate), 99 is a set OR overpair play to me.

as a result, i will only openraise with 99 in LMP or limp along hoping for a 9 or undercards. i would like to see if i am giving up a lot of equity here.

Pete H.

[Clarkmeister]

"given a statistic cited to me before that "70% of the time an overcard falls against JJ""

This is flat-out wrong. It is a shade over 50%. The important thing is that JJ flops as an overpair or with a set roughly 60% of the time. Compare that to AK flopping a pair roughly 33% of the time. No wonder JJ's EV is so much higher than AK's at pokerroom.

[Peter Harris]

interesting. May i ask where one finds or calculates overcard statistics?

It is clearly a part of my game that i can't rely on [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Pete

[Tosh]

You can easily work out it yourself, it is a simple probability problem.

[WiredPear]

The best reason to raise with 99 is to drive players out. At these limits that's not likely to happen. About half of the time, you won't get an overcard, but others will certainly be drawing to one. So unless you hit trips on the flop, you're either trailing or in a race situation. So, I don't think 99 is an automatic anything (raising or limping). You should do a mix - this is a good situation to mix up your play a little.

If it's a tight table for these limits, then raise. If it's a table that has capped pre-flop raising the last three hands in a row, it's a fold. If it's the usual mix of loose/passive, maybe raise about 50% of the time.

[chief444]

I can't imagine that I wouldn't open raise with pocket 9's at 6-max table. A full table of 9 or 10 makes things different but I will still occasionally open raise with them from EP.

[sfer]

For people interested, and everyone should be interested, this is the page Clark is referring to:

Pokerrom stats

[SofaCoach]

[ QUOTE ]
However, in the blinds with limpers, its an autoraise for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why raise this from the blinds with limpers? This is the last situation I would raise 99 in. You're not going to drive out any opponents. I'm just learning so help if I'm missing something.

FWIW, 99 is an autoraise for me from any position if I am first in the pot or after just one limper. After 2 or more limpers I limp.

And Bram, you are righter, and you played the sample hand perfectly. For many, including me, it is difficult to raise PF and then fold on the flop. But it is a necessary discipline.

[LeftBack]

Among others, Mike Petriv wrote a book on odds:

To find the probabilities of one or more above a rank:

He takes a deck of 48 (he doesn't include the median rank) and figures the odds for the cards below your rank and subtracts to find the sum of all combinations above your rank.

(48*47*46)/(3*2*1) total combinations = 17296

(36*35*34)/(3*2*1) combinations below J = 7140

(17296-7140)/17296 = 58.7%

Kind of a tough read, not cheap, and out-of-print; I bought mine at amazon.com.