Overpair on non scary flop

5-handed
Level: 100/200. Blinds will increase to 150/300 within 1 minute.

Live tournament.

UTG (Hero) 2900
UTG +1 3200
Button 3100
SB 3500
BB 6300

I get dealt 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. I flat call and sb completes. BB raise bbx3. Both me and button calls. Pot is now 1500.

Flop comes down 3-3-7 rainbow. SB bets out 500 and BB calls. Whats my move here?

I am thinking a push here would be ok to get it all down. My read on both is that SB likes to play suited cards, no matter the gap between them and Ax. Same with BB but a little bit more tight and he raise with Ax if no raiser is in front of him.

Only top 2 pays.

[Sam T.]

Hard to imagine anyone has a three here. I shove, and hope I'm looking at 88/7x/Overs rather than TT+. But I love flopped overpairs too much for my own good.

[Lloyd]

5-handed and getting shortstacked, I will raise 100% of the time here with 99. Doesn't matter if your UTG. Shorthanded this is like opening from late MP and 99 is very strong. You can limp with 99 early in a tournament because if you're raised 1) it doesn't cost a lot to throw the hand away if you want to; 2) you usually have odds to call a raise just for set value; 3) at this point the blinds are so big relative to your stack that you'd like to win them pre-flop.

With the BB raising you can see the problem of limping at these blind levels. You're putting in 1/3 of your stack. If I'm going to play, I'd go ahead and push and try and get heads up with the BB. He could have just been trying to own the limpers. He could give you credit for an even bigger hand.

With 2500 in the pot and 2000 behind I'd find it awfully hard not to push the flop. Again, this is another problem created by passively playing this hand pre-flop. You really don't have much of a clue where you're at. You've got 1 too many people in the hand. But stack sizes and increasing blinds dictate a push.

Was the BB known for slowplaying? Or would he protect an overpair on the flop such as Jacks or Queens. I think he would have to raise w/ TT-QQ, KK and AA are possible but they can afford to take a card off. And a 3 is unlikely since the pot is raised? And would small blind bet into the raiser w/ trips? My first thought was to push the flop since most overpairs would want to protect the flop vs overs thus they would have raised. I think theres a good enough chance that your facing a 7x, overs or a lower pocket (hopefully not 77). Plus what Lloyed just said, your stack is getting small (soon to be 10 big blinds next hand) and you need to find a good situation to make a move and this looks pretty good.

[John W]

Playing 5 handed I doubt I would ever limp UTG with two nines. The most important thing is to know where you are at in a particuliar hand and now you have no clue. With this flop its about as good as it gets for two nine I would push.

If you had raised then gotten reraised by BB then you might have a better feel if your nines are good are not. Hope it worked out for ya.

Thanks for the input guys. I now know I should have raised preflop but at that very moment I thought I could aswell call and see a cheap flop and call a small bet too. Would have given me much more if I decided to open the betting preflop since I had position postflop. Guess I overlooked that part.

But there is no doubt this is a push on the flop even though with as little information I still have. I figure BB missed the flop totally since he is just calling.

[southgapoker]

I see no rationale for not raising preflop.

None.