The hand that I will be describing was the first hand played at my table right after dinner break. It was during Level 9 with blinds at 600/1,200 and ante of 100. First, some background information:

Villain was moved to my table about an hour or two prior to dinner break and we haven’t really played a hand heads up. Villain was in Seat 8 and I was in Seat 1. Prior to this hand, Villain had shown 2 of his hands: (1) He min-raised from UTG then folded to my 3x re-raise and showed AJ off suit. (2) I was in SB when he raised 3x BB pre-flop from hijack and both BB and I called. We all checked through on a ragged board and he showed down Kc8c.

Back to the hand in question: Villain was in SB and I was UTG+1. We were the two chip leaders at our table (I had about 42,500 and he had about 37,000) and top 5 overall according to pokernews.com. BB didn’t make it back from dinner in time for this first hand. UTG folded and I made a standard raise to 3,600 with pocket 9s. Everyone else folded to Villain who re-raised to 9,100. I asked for his chip count before calling another 5,500.

Flop brought 8h8c7h and Villain checked. I bet 9,000 into a pot of 20,400 and Villain pushed his remaining stack of about 28,000 after about 10 seconds or so. Now there were about 57,000 chips in the pot and it would be another 19,000 for me to call. Winning this pot would make me the over all chip leader with about 600 players left (top 270 paid) and losing it after calling would leave me with about 5,400. Folding would leave me with about 24,000.

Would you call or fold? I am not sure if I am supposed to include my read on Villain's hand so I will skip that for now. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.


EDIT: I left off another hand that Villain had shown. At the 400/800 level, Villain had called an all in for about 15K with AK off suit and won a race vs QQ. Right before he called he said "let's gamble."

Im not a fan of the preflop call, I don't think 30k is enough behind to be calling that big of a raise. You're calling 5500 and the guy has about 30k behind. You're ahead of AK/AQ and probably behind every other hand (unless you think he's capable of 3 betting with 88/77)

I personally think he would c-bet with anything you beat, and check most hands that have you crushed. I would definately play AA or KK the same way your opponent did. You most likely would shove with AK so he should be putting you on a midpair. In which case a check is definately the correct play with a big overpair in his spot.

I play this a little more passively. I probably check behind flop, call his turn bet, and re-evaulate on the river. I think the flop bet is a little weak considering all you are doing is getting a worse hand to fold (if he has AK/AQ no hearts), and you are probably gonna get played back at with any pair or AK/AQh.

If I did bet I would make it around 12-15k. But I don't bet in this spot much, because you aren't really getting played back at with a hand u beat. (I dont think you're beating AKh or AQh but i could be wrong)

As played I definately fold the flop. I can't see him doing this without overpair or flush draw with 2 overs

Couple things:

Villain has not shown agression and has folded or checked down his weak hands...suddenly he is showing enormous strength. Do we have a reason to not believe him?

After a pre-flop re-raise and a safe flop, Villain open checks. This worries me more than him leading out. He's not afraid to let you take control, or to give a free card. He's either very weak or very strong. The former folds to any bet, the latter c/r's. Take the free card.

As played. Make him promise to show you JJ and fold.

Preflop, you're getting almost 8-1 on the call assuming you get his whole stack if you flop a set. I think the call is defensible preflop as you have position on him also

On the flop, I check behind and I'm willing to give a free card to a big ace as I would have expected a CB here from villain unless he has a big overpair. If we hadn't hit the flop at all then I could see leading out but the free card offers us potential straight draws (5,6,10,J) besides the two case nines. As played, I'd fold as based on the hand histories with villain, he didn't bluff before when he didn't have something so there's a strong probabilility that he has us down to two outs.

Congrats on the showing by the way!

Yeah, I like a check behind on the flop much better than a bet. I really don't like the preflop call given that we haven't seen much aggression from him and that we aren't quite deep enough for set value. We are getting around 8-1 implied, but we really need much more than that because we can't guarantee that (1) We stack him when we hit a set (2) We don't lose the hand when we hit a set. It's just not a +EV situation for us.

As played, I like TB's line of check the flop, call a bet of <10k on the turn and re-evaluate the river.

IF YOU PLAN ON PROVIDING A FEEDBACK, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS FOLLOWING POST UNTIL YOU HAVE RESPONDED FIRST.



























Thanks all for your feedbacks. I agree with each of you and here is my own thought process:

PREFLOP

The preflop call with 99 is not a call I usually make in this situation for the reasons you mentioned above and Villain's play for far. However, I made the preflop call for the following reasons:

(1) As the chipleader at the table and against the #2 big stack, I wanted to set an example that I am raising with decent hands and won't be folding easily to a re-raise preflop so the players won't be encouraged to play back at me without a very strong hand (especially the 2nd big stack).

(2) I had position on Villain and he was the last person remaining to act so the action would be closed after my call.

(3) I considered set value as well but this was the least important factor leading to my call since we weren't that deep.

(4) The major reason leading to my call was that BB was absent. My read on him was that he wasn't that strong and was thinking that I was raising with anything because I have the biggest stack and BB was defenseless.


FLOP

As soon as I bet the flop I realized that I made a mistake in not checking. However, Villain's all-in gave me a 2 to 1 odds to call so I would have great pots odds to call against flush draw and event flush draw with 2 overs (AhKh or AhQh for example). Based on his demeanor and the way he put his chips in, my read was that Villain didn't have an overpair or a very strong hand. I contemplated for a while and eventually folded because of the various reasons all of you pointed out. I also couldn't be 100% sure about my read on Villain's hand since I mostly play online and I felt that staying in this tournament with 24,000 at Level 9 would be more +EV compared to being the chipleader at the same level. I might have called if this were any regular tourney and not the WSOP given that this is my first trip here. I didn't recognize the Villain but after Day 1 I saw his name in the standings which led me to his profile for those who are interested:

http://www.cardplayer.com/players/results/...i-Mabuchi/15429

Without asking, as soon as I folded, he revealed his hand:


AQ off suit (no heart)

Interesting. I can see him making this flop play with a safe board and a weakish cBet on your part...he must have picked up on some weakness. His PF raise with this holding is a bit surprising though...pretty aggressive move. Perhaps he picked up that you were an observant opponent and knew that you had his table image as tight. Definately some multi-level thinking going on in this hand. Very nice.