DECISION POINT: You are in a live $1/$2 cash game where you’ve run your initial $200 buy-in up to over $700. Action folds to MP1, who you’ve observed to be very loose and often opening with over 50% of hands, and they predictably open to $20. MP2 folds and you reraise to $70 from the Hijack seat with 9♣9♠. It folds to the Small Blind, who you've observed to be tight, and they 4-bet to $170. Everyone folds including the original raiser and action is back on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a live, low stakes $1/$2 cash game and we've managed to run our initial $200 buy-in up to over $700. We’ve been playing at this table for a while and the MP1 player is extremely loose, often opening to $20 with over 50% of hands. We are dealt 9♣9♠ in the Hijack. It folds to the extremely loose player who predictably opens to $20.

In this particular situation our nines are well ahead of the Small Blind's opening range, so isolating this player with the wide range while we are significantly ahead makes a lot of sense. We 3-bet to $70 and it is folded to the Small Blind who cold 4-bets to $170. Our observation of the Small Blind is that they’ve been playing extremely tight and we estimate their hand range to be TT+/AQ+. They’re also one of the few other stacks over $200, having started the hand with $410. Everyone (including the loose initial raiser) folds and action is on us.

Against the Small Blind's estimated range our pocket nines have around 37% equity. There is $262 in the pot and we have to call $100 more, so if this were an all-in situation we would have to call given our equity against their range. However this is not an all-in situation and we can probably anticipate that their last $240 is going in almost every time. So if we were playing this hand all the way to showdown it would be more like calling $340 to win $502 which is well short of the nearly 2:1 we need on our money to continue here.

Alternatively we could look at potentially calling to flop a set. That only happens roughly 12% of the time. This means we'd need to be able to win around $750 every time we called the $100 preflop to breakeven, and stacks just aren’t deep enough for that. We also could potentially call and try and realize our equity on flops that don’t contain an ace, king, or queen.

The problem there is that an ace, king, or queen hit on the flop around 50% of the time, and sometimes we’ll be folding the best hand when non-broadway combos in their range don’t hit. Even on a really great flop that doesn’t contain a nine such as 8♥5♣2♠ rainbow our equity only goes up to 43% versus their range.

If we had some sort of information that the Small Blind might make this play with some bluffs like A5s, or even lighter for value with hands like 77/88, we would likely have to continue here. Continuing may also be an option if we knew the Small Blind was super tight postflop and allows us to realize our equity by for example, not c-betting with AK on a queen high flop.

Without one of those pieces of information we’re left in a situation where we are behind the Small Blind’s range and the stacks aren’t deep enough to let us call and try and flop a set, but aren’t shallow enough for appropriate odds to see all five cards against their range. With these specific stacks and ranges we just can't continue profitably.

Folding is the best play.