DECISION POINT: You're in a large field live tournament where blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante. Late registration is still open and over 60% of the field still remains. Most stacks at your table are around 30K, except for MP2 who has 78K, and you who have 80K. The MP2 player opens to 2,300 and it folds to you on the Button with 6♦5♦. You call, the Blinds fold, and the flop comes A♣Q♦7♣. Your opponent checks and action is on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a large field live tournament and we’ve managed to run up our 30K starting stack to 80K. Most of the other stacks are around 30K except MP2, who has 78K. Late registration is still open and over 60% of the initial field is remaining. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante. We are dealt 6♦5♦ on the Button and everyone folds to MP2, who opens to 2,300, and action folds to us.

This is a great spot to defend the Button with hands that play well in position at nearly 80BB effective stacks. Suited connectors are great hands for this type of defense scenario, so we call and both Blinds fold.

The flop is A♣Q♦7♣. The Middle Position player has a significant range advantage on this board; however, our range does have a lot of suited hands as well as broadway hands that connect with this board or have significant draws. We also have 77 some of the time, so the out of position player should be somewhat cautious at this stack depth, even with the range advantage.

MP2’s strategy in this spot is largely built around betting some of their stronger top pair holdings as well as some of their complete misses to leverage range advantage. They will check with some big hands that lock up the board, such as slow plays like AA/QQ/AQ, plus hands that have some significant showdown value but don’t really want to build a pot like TT or QJs. Our opponent decides not to continuation bet, and we have a decision to make.

A critical part of defending the Button is utilizing position to overrealize our equity with many of the hands in our range that don’t connect with the board. This is a great scenario to start bluffing on the flop, as we have a backdoor flush draw and a backdoor straight draw, so we can turn additional equity on future streets. We are unlikely to win with 6 high at showdown even if we pair one of our hole cards, so we stand to benefit a lot when betting causes MP2 to fold portions of their range that are currently ahead.

Consulting with a solver after the hand, we’re able to confirm these assumptions. Many of our best bluffing combinations are hands where both hole cards interact with the seven and we have some sort of flush (in this case, clubs) or backdoor flush (diamonds) draw. Hands including 8d6d, 9d8d, 5d4d, and our 6d5d, are great candidates to start bluffing with.

Since MP2’s checking range does include a lot of hands that have some showdown value, such as JJ/TT or QJs, we want to start betting relatively large in relation to the pot to really apply pressure to the capped part of their range. Sizing of around 75-100% of the pot is ideal.

Betting 75-100% of the pot is the correct play.