Quote Originally Posted by saywhat2
Me and my Friend Bob, are having a debate about a hand he played. Please share your thoughts. The setup is 200NL 1-2 dollar blinds. There will be three people to enter the pot. Bob, Steve and Mike. All three players have 200 dollars in front of them. Ok so Bob opens it up in Middle position for 8 dollars with pocket 9’s. The next player to enter is Steve, Steve makes it 24 dollars. Mike calls the 24 dollars from the Button. BB and SB fold. Back to Bob, Bob folds. The flop comes Qc-9h-2s. Steve leads out and bets 20. Mike goes all in for 175 dollars. Steve calls the remaining 155 dollars. Turn over the cards Steve shows KK and Mike shows QQ ,Mike made a set of queens. The turn is a 9 (Bob would have made four 9’s) the river is a blank. Mike takes down 409 dollars.
Ok so this is the first part of are debate. I say Bob should make the call pre flop with his pocket nines. There is 59 dollars in the pot .It will cost Bob another 16 to make the call. The Implied odds he will be getting on his money should justify the call. And if he doesn’t hit the set he can throw it away.
Now part 2 of are debate. He says even if he made the initial call. He would throw it away after the flop. He says based on the betting he was sure somebody had hit the set of queens. I say yes you may be right, but with no st8 and no flush on the brd you got to make that call. As Doyle says in supers system, sometimes you just got to pay them off.
1. I know most people have advocated calling, and some books will tell you that you should always call preflop with any pair in a cash game, but I think this situation is a judgement call. We are looking at a sizeable preflop reraise and a call here and so the chances are very much that at least one of them has an overpair to your nines. If you know that your opponents will play this way with any pair from 22 upwards or two high cards suited or not, you call. If not, I would suggest you must consider folding.

I have a lot of debates about pot odds, implied odds and whether or not a call is correct. Maths is important, but not as important as knowing your opponents and the types of hand they play. For me, that would be more crucial than the odds I am receiving.

2. If you are sure, that is sure, that someone has made a set of queens on the flop then you fold. You do not make that call! And if you are sure that someone has made top set from the betting and you can get away from middle set then you are a world class player, or not far short of it!