DECISION POINT: You are in the early stages of a daily multi-table tournament with blinds at 100/200 and a 200 big blind ante. Most of the table has between 8,000 - 10,000 chips and you have 10,000 chips on the Button with 5♦5♥. Action folds around and you open to 500, the Small Blind folds, and the Big Blind calls. Your opponent checks the Q♦4♠2♦ flop, you c-bet 450 and get called. The turn is 7♦, the Big Blind checks, and action is on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are in the early stages of a daily multi-table tournament. The blinds are 100/200 with a 200 big blind ante. Most of the players at the table have between 8,000 and 10,000 chips making for 40-50 big blind effective stacks.

We are dealt 5d5h on the Button and everyone folds to use. Pocket fives falls well within our first-in opening hand range from the Button, so we open to 500. The Small Blind folds and the Big Blind calls. The flop is Qd4s2d and the Big Blind checks.

We have a fairly significant range advantage over the Big Blind in this situation as this flop is also fairly dry, even though it contains two diamonds. This is a favorable board that we should continuation bet with our entire range at a high frequency. We bet 450 and our opponent calls. The turn is the 7d and our opponent checks again.

When constructing a turn bluffing range we should first select from hands that have some equity when called, next include the hands with key blockers, and finally add in the worst combinations in our range. In the majority of scenarios we can easily find enough bluff combinations from just the first two of these criteria.

Being mindful to balance value hands and bluffs appropriately is crucial, or else we could easily become too value heavy or too bluff heavy and could easily be exploited when the Big Blind adjusts by overfolding or overcalling.

In this specific situation we have a key blocker with the 5d, as many of the strongest hands our opponent is likely to have called with on previous streets include low suited diamond combinations such as 6d5d and 5d4d. We also have some equity against hands that represent some of the stronger non-flush hands in the Big Blind’s range, such as QJo/QTo without a diamond.

Considering all of these factors together we can see that 5d5x is one of the more favorable turn bluffing hands on this board.

Betting around ⅔ of the pot is the best play.