PokerCoaching.com Quiz: 'Dealing With Marginal Top Pair

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You are playing eight-handed in a $10,000 buy-in tournament with the blinds at 150-300 with a 300 big blind ante. You are facing an under-the-gun raise to 800 from a tight player with a 30,000 stack and a cutoff call from a loose aggressive player with a 45,000 stack. You are in the big blind with J 9 and a 61,700 stack.

Question 1: Should you fold, call, reraise to 2,300, or reraise to 4,000?

Answer: You have an easy call. When you have an open from a tight early position player, you do not want to three-bet your decent suited connector hands from out of position. This is especially true when you are going to get four-bet a lot from the tight early position opener due to the caller in the middle.

You call and see a three-way flop of J 6 4.

Question 2: Should you check, bet 1,000, bet 2,000, or bet 3,000?

Answer: This is a situation where you should basically never lead due to having a deep stack and being against at least one strong range. Even though you have top pair, the early position opener has A-A, K-K, Q-Q, and A-J in his range, and the cutoff could also have you crushed. If you check and there is substantial action between the other two players, you can simply fold without further investment. The best play is to check.

You check, as does the initial raiser. The cutoff bets 2,000. The pot is now at 4,350.

Question 3: Should you fold, call, raise to 5,500, or raise to 7,500?

Answer: Marginal made hands like top pair with a marginal kicker pretty much always call (and rarely raise) because if you were to raise, what’s going to continue? Most of the likely better made hands and decent draws that have good equity against your hand. You want to keep your opponent’s range as wide as possible because your marginal top pair has the weakest hands in your opponent’s range crushed, so the correct play is to call.

You call the 2,000 bet from the cutoff and the initial raiser folds. The pot is now 6,350. You should check every turn, even if it improves you.

The turn is the 7 and you proceed to check. Your opponent checks behind and the river is the 6.

Question 4: Should you check, bet 1,000, bet 5,000, or bet 13,000?

Answer: You can reasonably check or value bet small. If you bet using a large size, most worse hands will fold, which is a bad result. If you decide to bet really small, you will need to have a plan if you are raised, which will depend on your opponent’s general tendencies (and especially how you expect them to respond to a “weak” play of betting tiny.)

You bet 1,000 and your opponent raises to 9,000.

Question 5: Do you fold, call, or go all-in?

Answer: This is an easy call because this is the action you have induced. You wanted this to happen! When you make tiny bets with marginal made hands, you should usually call when you do not block any of the obvious busted draws. Notice in this spot, you do not have any hearts or diamonds, meaning you have an easy call.

You call the 9,000 bet. Your opponent shows K Q, one of the logical flopped backdoor flush draws, and you win a 24,850 chip pot. ♠

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