DECISION POINT: You're in the early stages of a daily tournament with no significant reads on your tablemates, with the exception that they mostly have been showing down reasonable hands. The blinds are 200/400 with a 400 big blind ante and you have 20,000 chips to start the hand. The action folds to you in the Cutoff with 7♠7♥, you open to 1,000, and only the Big Blind calls. The flop comes K♠5♥2♦. Your opponent checks, you c-bet 900, and they call. On the 3♠ turn the Big Blind leads out for 1,500 and action is on you. What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are in the earlier stages of a daily tournament with blinds of 200/400 and a 400 big blind ante. Most of the players have been showing down reasonable hands when we’ve had the opportunity to see them, and we otherwise haven’t developed any significant reads to this point in the session.

With 20,000 chips to start the hand in the Cutoff and holding 7♠7♥ we make a standard raise to 1,000 chips, and everyone folds to the Big Blind who just calls. The flop is K♠5♥2♦ and the Big Blind checks to us. This is a board where the preflop raiser from the Cutoff will have a significant range advantage and we will frequently continuation bet with our entire range. In game we make the preferred choice and bet 900 into the 2,600 pot, and the Big Blind just calls.

The turn is the 3♠ and surprisingly, our opponent leads for 1,500. When an opponent takes a line where they lead into the aggressor on the turn, there is often one of several factors at play.

First, the Big Blind will often lead the turn when picking up additional equity, which in this case would mostly be flush draws but does include some Ax, 6x, and 4x hands.

Second, they could have turned two-pair or better with hands including A4, K3, 33, 53, and 32s, and are trying to build a pot fearing we may not fire again on this board texture. Lastly, this turn lead may be intended to deny equity since we are betting such a wide range on the flop. Many of the 5x combos in the Big Blind’s range benefit greatly from generating folds from some of our random overcards, such QJo, that still have significant equity.

Given these assumptions, the Big Blind’s leading range likely consists of some draws, some bigger hands, and some medium-strength hands looking to clear out equity. Our pocket sevens are doing fairly well against that range. However, there is little reason to raise as our opponent is likely to fold medium-strength hands we dominate, continue with the hands that dominate us, and proceed with draws only if getting the correct price.

Calling is the best play.