NL Cash - Medium Pair in the Blinds

[Benny Brox]

Full Tilt Poker Game - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 9 handed

First hand after joining the table but I have watched 2 orbits before joining. Villain has noticeably raised and bet in quite a few hands and my first impression was that he is not a nit. His bets and raises also seem "educated". I am in BB with $25 and look down at [ ]

UTG+2 raises to $1 after being informed he has 15 seconds left to act. His stack is $39.60. It's folded round to me. Question 1 - Call, Raise or Fold?

It's a bit nittish to fold but being OOP 9-handed and not 100% read it wasn't strong enough to raise so I called.

Flop - [ ] - Pot = $2.10 Question 2 - Check or Bet and how much?

I checked and villain bet the pot $2. Question 3 - Call, Raise or Fold?

I raised to $7. I had in my mind here if I checked and he made a CB I would raise to represent a strong hand and also to try and determine his hand (or possible range). I also believe most people who have just saw a player join the table and bet aggressively straight away would believe they have the goods rather than the opposite.

Villain calls.

Turn - [] Board now [ ] [] - Pot = $16.10.

You have $17 left, villain covers you. Question 4 - Check or Bet (and how much)? What does the villain have?

I'll wait for a few replies before adding any more.

[Longy]

Full ring is not my game and im in the habit of 3betting 9's alot but i believe the preferred option for good full ring player is to call here, especially given where the raise has come from utg+1.

Flop is an interesting one and is one of those situations. I often check/call and reasses the turn, the other option I go with is donking out for say $1.50. Depends on how villain cbets I go with the former against people who cbet alot and the latter against those who don't. Im not a fan of bloating this pot out of position as we rarely get called with worse.

On the turn i give up, we are probably only ahead of a flush draw here most of the time. I think villain has 99-jj alot here and possibly 88, aa-qq.

Be interested to hear other views as im never sure about postflop with small overpairs.

[TightEnd]

1 full ring its call..set mine/ look for a flop

2 bet out, best way to see where the land lies early..check raising bumps pot up OOP

3 as played (checked), call, play small ball

4 you c/raised. as played lead. if you check you should face pressure so put pressure on yourself

However his range now is 88, 99+ or a club draw, two of which ain't good!

[Benny Brox]

Thanks for your views.

When the turn hit - I pushed all-in. Villain folded (although he went into the time bank) and I won the pot.

The reason I pushed was that I thought his call of my check-raise felt really, really weak. If he had an over-pair surely he would have re-raised on the flop? The turn was also a relatively dormant card so a pot-sized bet here could look like a really strong hand. I also wanted to avoid any tricky decisions on the turn OOP.

However I'm quite conflicted by this hand. Looking back I don't think it was entirely great play by me, as the old motto goes only a hand better than mine can call that bet. He asked what I had and I said JJ and he said nice bet. He may have laid down a premium pair here. If you were in his shoes, in this situation, with no read, what hand would you need to call my all-in, QQ-AA?