DECISION POINT: You have late registered for a daily tournament with a fast structure. The blinds are 250/500 with a 500 big blind ante. It folds to you in MP1 with 9♥9♣ and you raise first-in to 1,000. Action folds to the Big Blind who just calls. The flop comes 7♣6♣5♥ and your opponent bets 1,000. Action is on you. What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We have just entered a daily tournament with a fast structure and are jumping in a few levels after the start. The blinds are 250/500 with a 500 big blind ante. We are dealt 9♥9♣ in MP1 with our 10,000 starting stack. Everyone folds to us, and since pocket nines are a part of our first-in hand range from this position, we open to 1,000 chips. Everyone folds except the Big Blind, who just calls.

The flop is 7♣6♣5♥ and our opponent leads for 1,000 chips. Unlike our recent decision from a cash game session, this is a spot where a good opponent should be doing some leading based on theory. This board does connect well with a Big Blind defense calling range, but they have many hands that benefit from protection, and this is a board we won’t be expected to continuation bet often.

The Big Blind’s range should include a lot of 1-pair hands, especially those that have some sort of straight and/or flush draw to provide some backup equity. They will also lead with some overcard combinations that include flush draws, both backdoor and direct, as well as some 2-pair hands for balance. When we look at this situation closely, the Big Blind should be leading with around 50% of their range on this board.

From our perspective, we have an overpair with an inside straight draw and a stack to pot ratio (SPR) of around 3. This is not a spot we would ever be looking to fold our hand, so the main question we have to ask is if we should just call or raise. When considering the potential leading range for the Big Blind as discussed above, we can assume:

• We are well ahead of most of their 1-pair hands
• We still have significant equity against many of their 2-pair hands
• Many of their overcards have significant equity against us

It is important to consider that if we were to raise now, many of their hands that we are well ahead of will call, while many of the overcard combos that have significant equity against us will fold (with the exception of direct flush draws using both hole cards). When our opponent will continue against aggression with hands such as 74s but folds hands such as JhTh or KcTh, that is a huge win for us.

Raising is the best play.