DECISION POINT: You're in the early stages of a $500 WSOP bracelet event with blinds at 300/600 and a 600 big blind ante. Most stacks are in the 50BB range, and you have no reads on your tablemates. Action folds to the Button who raises to 1,300, the Small Blind folds, and you defend in the Big Blind with 6♠3♠. You check the K♠7♣5♣ flop, the Button c-bets 1,200, and action is back on you. What's your move?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing a $500 buy-in multi-day bracelet event at the World Series of Poker. The tournament is still in the early levels, and we just moved tables a few hands ago, so we have no significant reads on our opponents. Most of the stacks are in the 50 big blind range. The blinds are 300/600 with a 600 big blind ante and we are dealt 6♠3♠ in the Big Blind. Everyone folds to the Button who opens to 1,300, the Small Blind folds, and action is on us.

With the big blind ante in play we are getting very favorable pot odds to continue from the Big Blind. While some of our weakest hands should definitely be folds, the defending range must be very wide when getting this price and calling with any two suited cards is a must. If we’re folding more than 20% of all total hands against this raise size when closing the action in the Big Blind, that means we are folding way too frequently in general.

We do elect to call, and the flop is K♠7♣5♣ bringing a backdoor flush draw and an inside straight draw. This is a flop that favors the preflop raiser’s range, so we will be checking 100% of hands by default in this situation. We check and the Button bets 1,200 into a 3,500 pot. While our hand might not seem like much with a gutshot straight draw and backdoor flush draw, we are getting nearly 4:1 on a call and the Button should have a very wide hand range in this situation.

With three cards to a straight and three to a flush in a Big Blind defense situation facing a small bet against a wide range such as this one, we should be alert that this scenario is potentially a good spot to check-raise. Our opponent is likely betting a super wide range on this board. That means that even when the Button does call our check-raise we still can potentially improve our hand to a likely winner and will pick up additional equity on some turn cards that will allow us to continue semi-bluffing.

Looking at this spot in a solver after the hand, the output indicates a split between calling (around 60% of the time) and raising (around 40% of the time). While our play shouldn’t always mimic a solver, understanding what the “optimal” play is based on pure theory is a good starting point. Deciding which option is best will often come down to tendencies for each player in your game.

If we had opponent specific information that the Button played tighter ranges, calling would often be the preferred option since the implied odds of hitting a straight would be higher and our check-raise would induce folds less frequently. Facing opponents who open more than they should from the Button, or continuation bet with a higher frequency than the solver suggests (which is 65% in this situation), we can adjust by check-raising.

The one clear mistake in this spot would be to fold. If we are considering a fold in this situation, we likely are proceeding too conservatively postflop when defending the Big Blind and would benefit greatly from tools such as the Fearless GTO Trainer to improve play in these postflop spots.

Calling or raising are both correct plays.