DECISION POINT: In a $1-2 game it folds to the Small Blind who raises to $12 (the standard open) and you call from the Big Blind with A♠5♠. Your opponent c-bets $8 on the 6♥3♣7♠ flop and you call. The turn comes 3♠ and the Small Blind bets $50 into a $40 pot. Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a low stakes cash game where the standard opening bet size is 6 big blinds, or $12. We are dealt A5 suited in the Big Blind and it folds around to the Small Blind who opens to $12.

This is a spot where we certainly could be reraising as a part of a mixed strategy with some of our Axs hands where x is a wheel card. A wheel card is a card that potentially makes the wheel straight, or A-2-3-4-5. Since we have position on a preflop raiser who potentially has a wide variety of hands with the large preflop raise size, calling is also a very reasonable play and that is what we elect to do.

The flop is 6♥3♣7♠ giving us a gut shot straight draw as well as a backdoor flush draw. Our opponent leads out for $8 (4 big blinds). In this spot we are getting 3:1 odds with our Ace high plus straight and flush draws. This is also a flop that tends to favor the preflop caller’s range as opposed to the raiser’s range as we have a lot more 54s/76s hands in our range than our opponent does, making this a great spot for us to potentially float in position. Floating means to call in position on one street with the intent of sometimes trying to take the pot away on a later street.

The turn is the 3♠ giving us a potential flush draw and our opponent bets $50 (25BBs) into a $40 (20BBs) pot. This is a spot where many players make a big mistake by folding too often. Even though we are getting worse than 2:1 direct pot odds, we have 12 likely outs, the 9 flush cards plus 3 remaining 4s that aren’t a spade. With 12 outs we need roughly 3:1 pot odds plus be reasonably sure we will get paid off when we hit on the river to break even on calling here.

To call $50 we would need to win $150 (75BBs) on average in this spot. There is already $90 (45BBs) in the pot and with such a large turn bet our opponent is quite likely willing to commit at least the 30 additional BBs ($60) on the river to make this call on the turn break even, and in many instances when we hit on the river we get their remaining stack. In addition, our Ace high may be good at showdown some of the time.

While there are potentially some times where we make our hand and it is still second best, our pot odds plus implied odds here are more than significant enough to make calling profitable in the long run. It is also unlikely we can generate enough fold equity by raising here given the size of our opponent's bet, and if calling is profitable then by default folding cannot be the best play.

Calling is the best play.

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