DECISION POINT: You've recently sat down in a live $5/$10 cash game with most stacks at $1,000 and action folds to you on the Button with 6♠6♣. You make the standard raise to $25, the Small Blind folds and the Big Blind calls. Your opponent checks the A♠6♦5♠ flop, you bet $20 with middle set and get called. The turn is 8♥, the Big Blind checks, and action is on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We’ve recently sat down in a live $5/$10 cash game with most of the stacks at around $1,000 with us having exactly $1,000 to start the hand. We are dealt black sixes and make a standard raise to $25 first to act on the Button. The Small Blind folds and the Big Blind calls.

We flop middle set on the A♠6♦5♠ flop and the Big Blind checks. This is a great spot for us to continuation bet. We could continuation bet a little on the larger side since we have a range and nut advantage on this board, however the two tone nature of the board and the lower connected cards do give the Big Blind some strong hands. This means that most of our range prefers to c-bet a smaller size, around one third of the pot. We continuation bet to $20 and our opponent calls.

The turn is the 8♥ and the Big Blind checks again. When trying to determine whether firing another bet on the turn is appropriate, and if so how much to bet, it’s crucial to think about how the ranges have likely changed given the action to this point in the hand.

When we continuation bet this flop and get called, the Big Blind’s range skews toward Ax hands, flush draws, and middling connected cards like 87s.

Since they would often reraise with hands like AK/AQ, the Ax combinations in the Big Blind’s range on the turn are more likely to be two-pair or top pair with an open ended straight draw such as A7s. This type of range is quite strong and can continue against even large bet sizes.

The fact that our opponent connects often with this board is why a polarized strategy is preferred in this spot, including checking the turn with a lot of hands. Although we prefer the polarized strategy in this spot for our entire range, 66 is one of the strongest hands we could have in this scenario and we should consider betting here. This is a great spot to try and get maximum value on the turn in a scenario where the Big Blind is more likely to call a larger bet size with a lot of their Ax hands and draws, but will likely only be willing to pay off big bets on the river if they improve.

When we plug this hand into a GTO Solver we can see the output strategy confirms our assumption, with checking preferred for nearly 75% of the hands in our range on the turn. The majority of hands that prefer betting in the Button range do so with a larger sizing. Our pocket sixes fall into the oversized betting range with a recommended sizing of around $125, an overbet of almost 130% pot.

In real-world game scenarios we should try and choose the largest bet sizing that hands like A5-A9 and flush draws will call, as those hands make up a vast majority of the Big Blind’s continuing range and are where most of our value comes from in this range interaction.

Overbetting the pot is the best play.