DECISION POINT: In a Tournament where blinds 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante action folds to a Middle Position player who raises to 2,500. It folds to you in the Big Blind and you call with Q♦J♣. The 4♣K♥6♦ flop is checked and the turn is 9♦. Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing the early to mid stages of a multi table tournament with a big blind ante in play and we are dealt Queen Jack offsuit (QJo) in the Big Blind. It folds around to MP2 who makes a standard open of 2,500 (2.5BBs). The remaining players fold and action is on us. With an ante in play and a 2,500 raise we are getting very good odds to continue here and a hand like QJo is very likely to have the equity necessary versus our opponent’s range. This is a great spot for us to defend our big blind and we call the additional 1,500 (1.5BBs).

The 4cKh6d flop is far better for our opponent’s range. We should expect them to continuation bet a majority of the time in this spot and our queen high likely has to fold even with the backdoor straight draw. We do check and our opponent also checks.

When our opponent checks here on a board where we would normally expect them to bet, this is often a signal that they have a hand that has some showdown value but doesn’t want to build a big pot. While opponents will sometimes do this with a hand like KK this is usually a spot where our opponent is capping their range by checking.

The turn is the 9d giving us a gut shot straight draw. Any time we see opponents taking action that cap their range it should immediately signal to us that there is an opportunity to attack. In fact, when opponents have capped ranges it can often be correct to overbet the pot and really punish our opponents.

In this particular spot where we have 4 outs to what is almost certainly the best hand AND our opponent has capped their range it is a perfect spot for us to overbet the pot and put a lot of pressure on our opponent. Betting 8,000 (8BBs) into this 6,500 (6.5BBs) pot is ideal.

Overbetting is the best play.

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