DECISION POINT: In $1-2 game full of unfamiliar opponents the UTG player limps, the Cutoff and Hijack call, and the Button folds. Action is on you in the Small Blind and you raise to $16 with K♥K♣. The Big Blind calls, UTG folds, and both the Cutoff and Hijack call. You lead out $30 on the 7♠7♥9♠ flop, the Big Blind folds, the Hijack player moves all-in for $284, the Cutoff folds and action is on you. What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a relatively unknown $1-2 cash game. Most players are right around $200 deep and we are dealt KhKc in the Small Blind. The UTG player limps and both the Hijack and Cutoff call and everyone else folds to us.

We definitely want to raise in this spot with KK. When facing multiple limpers preflop our raise size should be whatever the normal standard opening raise is for the table, plus 1 additional big blind for every limper and 1 BB for being out of position postflop. Assuming a standard raise of $8 at this table we would make it $8 + $6 dollars for the limpers ($2 for each limper) + $2 for being out of position, for a total raise size of $16. We raise to $16 and the Big Blind cold calls, UTG folds, and both the Hijack and Cutoff call.

The flop is 7s7h9s with $66 in the pot and the effective stack is $184 making the stack to pot ratio (SPR) less than 3. Even in a 4-way pot, a hand as strong as pocket kings will be difficult to fold at this stack depth. We could make a compelling case for checking if stacks were far deeper, however at this depth we still stand to get a lot of value from 9x/88/TT/JJ as well as flush and straight draws when we bet, all of which we unblock. Some players are tempted to bet really large here in order to price out the draws present on this board. Betting large instead actually folds out all weaker hands and results in only getting called when we are beat.

Betting $25-$30 here would be perfect as we can still get action from lesser hands and draws might feel compelled to raise over the top as a semi-bluff at these stack depths. We bet $30 and the Big Blind folds. The Hijack moves all-in for $284 and the Cutoff folds.

The effective stack here is $184 with the current pot amount of $290 and we have to call $144 which is almost exactly 2:1 pot odds. The hands in our opponent’s range that they may limp/call with preflop that beat us likely include 14 total combos of hands: 99 (3 combos), 77 (1 combo), 87s (2 combos), 97s (2 combos), A7s (2 combos), 76s (2 combos), and 75s (2 combos). It’s possible there are a few other 7x combos Hijack might limp/call with preflop, but some of these combos can also be part of a slow playing range the end result likely balances out.

In the worst case scenario outlined above where we are behind 14 of the limp/call combos in Hijack’s range we have just over 8% equity. In a more realistic scenario where they include A2s-A9s flush draws plus spade and heart combos of T8s and JTs in a shoving range we have 35% equity which is barely a call.

If the Hijack starts to shove hands such as TT, and JJ plus A9 suited combos that do not contain a spade, we quickly become a nearly 55% favorite. If we had opponent specific information that would indicate this opponent was incapable of raising in this spot as either a semi-bluff or with a worse hand, we could make an exploitative fold here.

In this case we don’t have any reads and it is far too likely that the Hijack’s hand range contains either enough semi-bluffs, worse value hands, or a combination of both to make calling profitable.

Calling is the best play.