DECISION POINT: You are in the first level of the WSOP Main Event at a table with loose players and blinds are 100/200 with a 200 big blind ante. The UTG+1 player raises to 700, MP1 calls, you call from MP2 with 4♦4♥, and the Hijack calls. Action folds to the Small Blind who reraises to 2,900, the Big Blind folds, and the remaining 4 players call. On the 2♦4♠6♣ flop the Small Blind bets 10,000, the UTG+1 and MP1 players fold, you call, and the Hijack folds. Your opponent bets 25,000 on the Q♣ turn. Action is on you with 37,100 behind, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are in the first hour of the World Series of Poker Main Event. Our table is loose and splashy with lots of players willing to mix it up at 100/200 blinds with a 200 big blind ante. We are dealt red fours in middle position. UTG folds and UTG+1 raises to 700 chips and MP1 calls.

This is a great spot for us to play a speculative hand in a multiway pot against loose, splashy players. The call amount of 700 chips is barely more than 1% of the effective stacks and if we flop a set we could win a huge pot. We call and so does the Hijack. Everyone else folds to the Small Blind who raises to 2,900. The Big Blind folds then UTG+1 and MP1 both call. It costs us 2,200 more chips to call which is still less than 5% of the effective stacks. Our implied odds have likely gone up since the Small Blind should be on a somewhat narrow hand range. We call and so does the Hijack.

With five players the flop comes 2♦4♠6♣ and we hit a set. The Small Blind fires for 10,000, UTG+1 and MP1 both fold and action is on us. Even though stacks started really deep the stack to pot ratio (SPR) is now fairly shallow at just above 3. If one of the preflop callers had been more aggressive that might be a bit more alarming since hands like 66 and 53s are a bigger part of their range. However, with the large preflop raise followed by a ⅔ pot continuation bet on this board texture the Villain is representing a big pair.

We could raise right now but since our opponent is representing a big pair there aren’t many scare cards on the turn, except perhaps a 3 or 5. If our opponent does bet again on the turn they will be pot committed, while they may find a disciplined fold on the flop if we choose to raise with our set. We call and the Hijack folds.

The turn is the Q♣ and our opponent bets 25,000 leaving only 12,100 effective behind. Sometimes early in a big tournament such as this we can see monsters under the bed. While they could definitely have QQ and just hit their hand there is a lot of AA/KK in their range as well. At this point the pot is large enough that we just want to get the rest of the money in and not risk a scare card coming on the river that prevents the Small Blind from getting the rest of their chips in.

If our opponent does have QQ (or the unlikely 66/53s) then it’s very unfortunate for us that it happened early on in such a big event but our hand is far too strong and this is the kind of massively +EV spot that could propel us to a deep run in this tournament.

Moving all-in is the best play.