DECISION POINT: In a Tournament, a UTG player raises and 2 Middle Position players call. You are in the Hijack seat with 9♦7♦ and you call. Everyone else folds. The Flop comes 3♦J♣T♦. UTG checks, and MP1 bets. MP2 Calls. Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: You call a preflop raise in position with 97 suited after 2 other callers. On the flop, one of the preflop callers bets, another calls and action is on you. What do you do with your draw?

When holding a draw and facing a bet, the first step you should take is to calculate your pot odds. In this case, there is 5500 already in the pot and it costs us 1500 to call. If we choose to call, there will be 7000 total in the pot going to the turn. Without taking into account any future betting, if we hit our draw 1500/7000 or about 21% of the time, this call should show a profit.

We have a flush draw and gutshot straight draw, so we have 12 outs. Using the Rule of 2, we have about a 24% chance of hitting on the turn (12 x 2 = 24). Even if we discount the jack of diamonds as an out (since it pairs the board), we still have a 22% chance of hitting on the turn. Since our chance of hitting is greater than our break-even equity given the pot odds, calling with our draw is profitable.

This eliminates folding as an option, since calling will be more profitable. What about raising?

One of the primary benefits of raising would be to induce folds from your opponents. This is known as fold equity. Since this is a multiway pot (4 players on the flop), the chance of getting all of your opponents to fold is lower than if there were fewer opponents. Raising would often simply put more money into the pot when we are behind.

Since getting all of our opponents to fold to a raise is less likely, we should take the profitable pot odds we are getting and call the flop bet with our draw.

Calling is the best play.