DECISION POINT: Preflop it folded to the Cutoff, who raised. It folds to you in the Big Blind with K♦Q♥. You reraise, and the Cutoff calls. The flop comes 9♦J♠Q♣. You bet half the pot, and the Cutoff calls. The turn is the 4♦. Action is on you, what do you do?

PRO ANSWER: This hand illustrates how the value of one pair hands on the flop can change based on stack depth and stack to pot ratio (SPR). If stacks were deeper, we would often bet this turn and check all rivers. We would generally fold to a turn raise.

However, we have less than a pot-sized bet left on the turn. Our standard turn bet of between half pot and ⅔ pot represents the majority of our remaining stack, therefore we choose to simply move all-in.

Hands like top pair good kicker often have less value on coordinated flops such as this one when stacks are deeper, as the more chips that go in postflop, the more likely one pair is to be beat. We started this hand with a little more than 50 big blinds and since we 3-bet preflop and continuation bet on the flop, we are now pot committed with our hand.

If we had started the hand with more chips, situations may arise where we are forced to fold this hand. With this stack size, we must continue against a single opponent with top pair, good kicker.

Betting is the best play.