DECISION POINT: UTG straddles and UTG+1 reraises. MP1 reraises again. MP2 folds and action is on you in the Hijack seat with A♣K♦. What do you do?

PRO ANSWER: In this $2/$5 cash game, the UTG player chose to straddle to $10. Note that stacks at this table are relatively deep, as we have 150 big blinds to start the hand and several players cover us. We can treat the straddle as a third blind, which means we now effectively have 75 big blinds (750/10) to start the hand.

The UTG+1 player open raise to $40 or 4x the straddle and the MP1 player chooses to reraise to $140. The positions and stacks of these players are crucial to understanding the correct play in this scenario. The range of hands we can put both of these players on should be very narrow by default.

The UTG+1 player will often have a relatively narrow hand range since they chose to raise from early position. The MP1 player’s range of hands should be even narrower, since they are choosing to reraise an early position player and both players are relatively deep.

As a default, we would put the MP1 player on QQ+, AK+ (pocket Queens or better and Ace-King). Versus this range we have less than 40% equity. Continuing in this situation will not be profitable in the long run. Calling is also unprofitable, as we will miss the flop the majority of the time and we usually will fail to win a big pot when we do hit and our hand is good.

Folding is by far the best play in this scenario.

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