I have always struggled with this stack size and medium pocket pairs and how best to proceed. With more than 40BBs I think it's an easy call to set mine. With 25BB and under it's obviously pretty bad to set mine, so shoving feels like a better choice, or even 3b to induce if a player is aggro enough. With a slightly better hand like TT+ I think it's an easy 3b/call. But what do we do with 30BB here and 99? I don't like the idea of flatting preflop since many flops will be bad for us and we may get bet off the better hand. Also, if we see a favourable flop (Q85hh for example) and choose to check/call, it's pretty obvious that we have only a one pair hand and villain can barrel us off on turns and rivers.

So what do we do? What should I be thinking about in this spot? I chose to 3bet preflop as taking down the pot straightaway is not a bad result, and also we have the initiative in the pot. However, there will still be a lot of bad flops that will make 99 difficult to play profitably out of position and our opponent could float us on a tonne of boards.

Folding here seems ridiculous, but all the other options sound bad too. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Am I overthinking the hand and is there a really obviously easy way to play it? I wonder if $3 players will have enough hand reading skills to be able to barrel us off so maybe this is a really easy call preflop. Cheers, Jamo