As long as you folded that flop, I think you played it pretty much perfectly. I don’t really see what else you would be thinking about doing on that flop with two nines – it’s one of the worst flops in the deck for your hand in absolute terms, and it’s extremely good for villain’s range in comparison to your own, since villain has a lot of AJ-AK in there.

When you’ve established that villain is likely to have a strong hand preflop, and then a really bad flop comes down, why would you suddenly believe that villain has a weak hand just because they bet fairly small? You can’t just go back on all the previous (and completely valid) conclusions you came to about villain’s range earlier in the hand. If villain is going to have a weak hand on this flop, they have to have a hand that was extremely weak preflop, and you already concluded they probably didn’t. Go with that read – it’s perfectly fine to just fold the flop and move on. You don’t have to try to win every hand.

Radriguez said
Thx for replies always! Well, I folded, of course. But after I kept thinking about the hand. With an obvious crazy loose caller in the mid position I think it makes my B raise and V’s raise more value-y. Alert players were looking for a chance to take crazy guy to value town. So whats his preflop raise range? He’s not doing it w 88 I’m pretty sure and I’ve got the 99/blocked, so TT+, AK, AQs? I think it could really be more like JJ+, AK actually. So on that flop, what part of his range is not flopping literal nuts. AK, AJ, AA, KK, JJ, are all nutty. He didn’t do this this QT and neither did I most likely. So why lead the flop? Is he protecting AK/2pr from a possible gutshot? I just feel like it he hit this flop at he’s crushing me. And his range is total value. If I have those nutty hands I’m checking the flop. Hero prob hit the flop too so why not check and let me make a move. Stacks aren’t that big he can still get it all in. 

Are you raising this flop with those hands? What’s his raising range? 

 Flop hits my range too of course..

Am I crazy?  

I think you’re seriously over-thinking it. Most of the time when people hit the flop, they bet. This is generally a good play. If your default strategy when you flop the nuts or a strong hand is to check, you’re losing a TON of value. In this instance, your opponent checking to ‘let you make a move’ would probably be a mistake, and it would also be a mistake for you to expect your opponent to do this without a specific read to go on.

In this case, the answer to “why lead the flop?” on a flop that absolutely nails villain’s range is an easy one – because they have a strong hand! There’s also some bad turns (Q or J) that can make life very difficult for even a hand like AA or AK on that flop. It makes total sense for villain to bet with strong hands on this flop, and I would recommend you shift your default assumption in this direction in future. When people have strong hands, they usually bet. That’s a good starting point.

Radriguez said
Ok, that makes sense. I probably do check when I when I flop nuts too much. Good talking me down ha.  It’s one of the hands in this tourney that I kept thinking about. Just sucked folding to 1/3 pot bet or whatever with such a big pot. I’m trying to not just disappear and fold on scary flop cbets like I usually do. But yea, this isn’t really a good spot to make a stand ha. Thx for the ideas!  

No problem. For the record, 1/3 pot isn’t that small of a bet. I would imagine it’s a perfectly good bet sizing for villain in a spot where there are very few bet sizings in his range.