DECISION POINT: In a Tournament, you are dealt 8♠8♥ from Early Position. You raise and get called by the Blinds. The Flop comes J♦9♠8♦. The Blinds check and you bet. The Small Blind folds and the Big Blind calls. The Turn is the A♣. The Big Blind checks. Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: After raising in early position, two opponents call from the Blinds and we flop a set. After continuation betting, the opponent in the Big Blind calls and the turn card is an Ace. Should we bet again or check on this turn card?

Many players make the mistake of slowplaying too often with their big hands. They are too focused on “losing the minimum” when they are behind, instead of maximizing value when they are ahead.

In this case, the majority of hands in our opponent’s hand range are worse than our set. There are many one pair hands, two pair hands and draws that we beat. Even if our opponent has QT or T7, we have 10 outs to improve to a full house or quads.

The only hands that leave us with little equity are bigger sets, which are a part of their range, but less common. Our opponent holding AA for top set is especially uncommon, given that they just called preflop in a multiway pot.

Slowplaying your hand becomes a much more attractive option on dry boards. This board, however, is quite coordinated, so there are many scare cards on the river that could kill our action in this hand.

We should bet for value on the turn, knowing that we can get action from many worse hands, including turned two pair (Aces up).

Betting again on the turn is the best play.