A♥K♠ vs a Straight Draw, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a live $2-5 game you raise to $15 with A♥K♠ from Middle Position and the Small Blind calls. Villain check-calls the A♦7♣4♥ flop and 3♠ turn. On the 5♦ river, Villain leads out $65 and action is on you. What do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: On the flop, we would actually prefer a smaller continuation bet size given how dry the board is and how much it favors our range. A larger continuation bet with our range is unnecessary in this spot and a bet size of $10-$15 would work well with our entire range
After our opponent check-calls the flop and turn, they suddenly lead into us for around half pot on the river when a 5 hits, putting two possible 4 card straights on the board. This is a situation where we raised preflop and made a significant bet on both the flop and the turn on a board that favors our range significantly.
Because the flop favors our range significantly and our opponent was willing to call twice, it is extremely unlikely they are bluffing here. Any possible draws Villain may have been calling with on the flop have gotten there, and while AKo is an extremely strong hand preflop, in this situation it is just one pair.
Since it is unlikely our opponent is bluffing, could they possibly be betting with a worse hand?
Continued below...
Given the board, A2-A7 all beat us now, Villain would have to be willing to make this play with A8-AQ. This seems extremely optimistic as many of those hands would prefer to check-call (or even check-fold) here and keep our range as wide as possible.
It is highly unlikely we have the best hand here, and we certainly don’t have the best hand the nearly ⅓ of the time necessary here to justify a call.
Folding is the best play
How would you play it?
Share your answer in the comments below!
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