DECISION POINT: In a live $1-2 game, you raise from the Small Blind with J♣9♣ and the Big Blind (a nitty player) calls. Villain raises your c-bet and you call. You check the A♣ turn and Villain bets. Action is on you, what do you do here

PRO ANSWER: Mixing turn check-shoves and check-calls is correct in a vacuum against a default tough opponent. Stepping away from defaults for a moment, one way to distill this spot down is to assess our turn fold equity on a raise based on this opponent.

This player is a nit, so we need to ask ourselves what hands are they betting on the turn with then folding to a raise? Will this opponent ever mistakenly bet the turn with Tx hands like KT? Do they even raise the flop with Tx hands? Is QJ in their range? What about flop backdoor flush draws (Kh5h) that are now air on the turn?

If we go through their default BB range and eliminate hands that are not likely to be played this way by this player type, we will find that there are not that many hands we would be able to fold out on the turn.

One of best ways to calibrate our turn check-raise frequency with this hand is to base it on our best assessment of Villain’s turn bluffing/semi-bluffing frequency. Against Villains with high frequencies, check-raising will be hugely profitable. Against Villains that are very value heavy in this spot, calling is much better.

As a default, this isn't a common raise-flop-bluff-turn spot, so we should tend to just call here without any player info.

Calling is the best play.