Pair of 77 vs a Donk Lead, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a Tournament, it folds to you in the Cutoff and you 3x raise with A♠7♦. The Button and Big Blind call. The flop comes K♦7♣3♥ and BB, who is first to act, leads out. Action is on you what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: We should typically raise a smaller amount preflop, especially given the stack depths. A full 3x raise is overkill on 20BBs and gives us less postflop maneuverability.
Depending on the tendencies of the players to our left, A7o may or may not be in our CO opening range. Against weaker opponents to our left we can open this hand, but against tougher competition we will want to simply fold it.
This is a tricky spot on the flop. Had this been a heads-up pot on the flop, our hand is an excellent one to include in our shoving range against a donk lead. It is both vulnerable to overcards and has decent equity against a balanced leading range, making it a prime candidate to shove.
However, the addition of the second opponent is problematic for us. Typically, most Villains donk lead into multiple opponents with a much tighter range than if the pot was heads-up. Many good heads-up continuation raise opportunities become folds or calls in multiway pots, both due to the narrower leading range and the presence of made hands in the Button's range.
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Given these factors, this hand becomes borderline between all 3 options instead of a clear shove. If Villain is very tight with their leads, we should simply fold this hand on the flop. Calling can sometimes be the most profitable line, especially against opponents that won't fire a turn second barrel bluff.
However, raising all-in is still the slightly preferred play with this hand. Raising effectively denies equity to various hands in Villain's range and should be our default with this hand against an unknown opponent.
Moving all-in is the best play.
How would you play it?
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