Part: Part Nine - Inflection Points: M, Q & the Zones

Jam, don't make a committing raise

Pre-flop
Blinds 400 / 800 (100 ante)Pot 2,100 (2.6 BB)Your M = 7 • Orange zoneMP9♠9♦● 14,700 (18.4 BB)YOUfirst to actSB● 16,000 (20 BB)posts 400 (0.5 BB)BB● 16,000 (20 BB)posts 800 (1 BB)D

Orange zone (M 7). It folds to you in middle position with 9♠9♦.

Orange zone, folded to you in MP with 9♠9♦. Best?

WhyMin- or standard-raise 9-9 at M 7 and you've put in a third of your stack with no plan for a bad flop - committed but flying blind. A shove fixes both problems: it squeezes maximum fold equity out of the blinds, and when called you're flipping at worst against overcards, never drawing dead. Raise-and-pray leaves value on the table that a jam collects cleanly.
What happensYou jam; the blinds fold, and on the times you're called you're racing at worst. The shove banked the fold equity a committing raise would have thrown away.
When a raise would commit you regardless, make it a shove. Jamming 9-9 in the Orange zone captures the fold equity cleanly and spares you the post-flop guesswork a half-pot raise leaves behind.

At Orange-zone depth a 'normal' raise already pot-commits you but still hands a caller the flop. With a hand you're going to play anyway, skip the middle step and jam.