DECISION POINT: In a live $1/$2 cash game it folds to the MP1 player who raises to $10. You reraise to $30 with K♥K♣ from the MP2 position and action folds back to the original raiser who calls. On the J♥9♦7♠ flop your opponent overbets all-in $176 and action is on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a $1/$2 9-handed cash game table. Most of the stacks are around $200 deep but we’ve managed to double up to $400 and there is one other stack in the Big Blind that has us covered. We are dealt KhKc in Middle Position and action folds to MP1 who raises to $10.

In low stakes live cash games it is not at all uncommon for opening raise sizes to be 5-6 big blinds or even larger. This opening raise size is pretty standard and represents a fairly normal Middle Position range of roughly 15-18% of total hands. Given the larger raise size, MP1’s opening range may be a little tighter if they are adjusting appropriately. Our hand is well ahead of MP1’s overall hand range regardless of and definitely warrants a 3-bet.

Electing to flat call in this spot would invite multiple players behind us to potentially call as well, and even though we have the 2nd best starting hand in No-Limit Hold’em, our hand plays much better heads up than against multiple opponents postflop. We raise to $30 and everyone folds except the original raiser in MP1 who just calls.

The flop is Jh9d7s and our opponent moves all-in for nearly three times the pot. Much like we’ve discussed in previous decision point hands, when our opponent leads into us (often referred to as a donk bet) there are usually two possible reasons to use this strategy.

First, MP1 could be leading the flop as a feeler bet, essentially asking us the question “am I good?”. In this case that is highly unlikely since they moved all-in.

The second common reason is that they are afraid we may check behind and a scary card will come on the turn. That scenario seems quite likely here, and the hands that fall into that category are other over pairs. This includes a range of QQ+ they decided not to 4-bet preflop plus AA, which they may have slowplayed, and Jx type hands such as AJs/KJs/QJs that are all hands that would be reasonable to call the 3-bet with preflop.

It’s also possible MP1 makes this overbet play with something like KQ/QT as a semi-bluff hoping we might fold an AK type hand. It is rare, but some players will also do this with J9/JJ/99/77 type hands because they are so afraid of a 4th card to the straight coming and are content to win the pot right now, even though it is much more +EV for them to check. We should largely discount this last scenario when deciding what to do here, however we need to keep it in mind as a possibility.

Once we paint the picture of MP1’s entire range it’s clear we are significantly ahead. Considering every possible hand combo for our opponents is still an important process however sometimes we’re going to have QQ or AJs in this spot, which can make this a much trickier decision. With pocket kings in this scenario however, we definitely call.

Calling is the best play.