DECISION POINT: You are in a fairly loose live $2/$5 game and have doubled your stack to $1100 (220 BBs). Most opponents at the table have around 100 BBs except the player seated in the UTG spot with just under 200 BBs, and the Big Blind who has over 400 BBs. The UTG player raises to $75 (15 BBs), UTG+1 folds, and action is on you in Middle Position with 9♥9♠.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing a live $2/$5 cash game and we’ve managed to more than double our stack to $1,100 thanks to some fairly loose play. There have been several situations with nonstandard bet sizing and a variety of hands making it to showdown. The Under the Gun (UTG) player has just under 200 BBs and the Big Blind has over 400 BBs, with the rest of the table having stacks around 100 BBs.

We are dealt 9♥9♠ in MP1. The UTG player opens to $75 (15BBs), UTG+1 folds, and action is on us. While this raise is well outside the recommended standard of 3BBs at 100BB effective, It’s not terribly uncommon in live cash games for players to make unusually large preflop raises. These larger preflop raise sizes are especially common in loose games where players attempt to thin the field after being called in multiple spots when using standard sizing.

In theory, with a preflop raise size of 5 BBs or larger the opening hand ranges should narrow significantly. With sizing as large as 15 BBs the UTG range should really only be opening a handful of combinations. In practice, many players attempt to adjust by using the same range of hands that is approved at 3BBs and simply increase the sizing to 15BBs so that opponents will “respect their raises”. The increased bet size dramatically skews risk/reward and constricts the range of hands that opponents will continue postflop with to only the strongest combinations.

Even if UTG used a more standard 3 BB open, our pocket nines are just on the cusp of being playable under the 5% rule as part of the preflop calling criteria given position. In this scenario we are facing a 15 BB open that represents just under 10% of the effective stack, which is far too large to call and attempt to hit a set.

In addition, we are in early enough position in the MP1 seat that calling or reraising is increasingly problematic, given that there are still six opponents yet to act who could wake up with a big hand. If we were on the Button or in the Big Blind we could potentially make a case for continuing against this larger preflop sizing. Given our current position there just isn’t a profitable way to continue here with pocket nines, even if the UTG player isn’t adjusting and narrowing their opening range properly based on the larger raise size.

Folding is the best play.