DECISION POINT: In a $5/$10 cash game an Under The Gun player, who you’ve observed as a skilled opponent, raises to $30. Action folds around to you on the Button, you 3-bet to $90 with A♥Q♣ and get called by the original raiser. Your opponent checks-raises the 3♥9♦A♣ flop to $225 and you call. The UTG player bets $320 on the J♥ turn and action is on you. What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a $5/$10 game with $1,000 effective stacks. The Under The Gun player is a solid, tough player from what we’ve seen so far. We are dealt AhQc on Button. UTG raises to $30 and everyone folds to us.

With AQ offsuit this is an ideal spot for a mixed response where we call 75% of the time and 3-bet 25% of the time. Using a suit randomizer we 3-bet to $90 this time and the UTG player calls.

The flop is 3h9dAc and our opponent checks. This flop is much better for our range than our opponent’s and it’s going to be almost a pure continuation bet with most of our range. In a 3-bet pot and with a positional advantage plus significant range advantage we can bet small here and still put our opponent to a meaningful decision. We bet $50 and our opponent check-raises us to $225.

In this situation our opponent should recognize this is a very good flop for our range. We have far more Ax hands in our range than they do and we can have the nuts (AA), which they are very unlikely to have. Our opponent will have a value raising range with some hands here including 33/99 plus some combos of AK, and to balance that out they need to have some bluffs.

The UTG player is most likely to pull their bluffs from hands like suited broadway cards that have a backdoor flush and straight draws, particularly combos with Kx since that blocks AK which would be one of our stronger holdings here. In that case, having the Qc in our hand is actually somewhat bad for us as we block some of our opponent’s likely bluffing combos including KcQc/QcJc/QcTc.

It is important to note that these bluffing combos are not a huge part of their overall range as the UTG player should mix folding and calling with suited broadways preflop. However, when we’re dealing with fairly narrow ranges like this blocking effects start to take on more significance. This flop decision is very close.

Using a GTO simulator the recommended actions are calling and folding to this raise almost exactly 50% of the time each. In this instance we call and the turn is the Jh.

The UTG player bets $320 and we’re faced with another tough decision. While our opponent would check-raise the flop with some suited broadway combinations they would likely only follow through on a turn bet when picking up a flush draw on the turn. This narrows their potential bluffing range while hands like 33/99/AK are all still in their value range. What was a very close call on the flop now becomes a fairly straightforward fold on the turn.

If we had opponent specific information that the Under The Gun player would either have a much wider bluffing range or be capable of playing a hand such as AT here for value, then we could potentially continue.

However, against a strong opponent with balanced ranges we simply cannot continue profitably, even though we have top pair with a good kicker.

Folding is the best play.