3♠4♠ on the Flop, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a Tournament, a Middle Position player raises and three players call. You call from the Small Blind and the Big Blind folds. The Flop is 2♣3♦5♠. Action is on you, what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: We have relative position in this pot, which means that the preflop raiser is directly to our left. If we check and they continuation bet, we get to see what the entire table does before we act.
This has the benefit of allowing us to sometimes get away from hands we might not otherwise get away from if we were to lead out with our draw into this multiway pot. In addition, we can sometimes win additional chips from calls behind the c-bettor. If we check and Villain bets 4k or 5k, we might get a caller or two behind before we act.
Overall, this is a great spot for us to check and often check-raise all-in against a c-bet.
Continued below...
By check-raising this flop, we maximize fold equity against Villain's range. Check-raising allows us to get the last bet in without using any awkward or unusual bet-sizing.
In addition, our hand has lots of equity against any Villain's calling range. This makes this hand a great candidate to semi-bluff the flop.
Checking with the intention of often check-raising is the best play.
How would you play it?
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