Pocket 7♠7♣ Preflop, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a Tournament, the Under the Gun player raises and it folds around to the Cutoff who calls. You are on the Button with 7♠7♣. Action is on you, what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: Our pocket sevens has plenty of equity against any reasonable opponent hand ranges but does not perform very well postflop with shallow stacks. Too many overcards to a 7 can come, which is especially problematic in this multiway pot. Small and medium pocket pairs do not realize their equity very well in multiway pots with low SPR flops.
In order to call and play this hand speculatively, we would need the effective stack to be much deeper so that the implied odds on flopping a set are significantly greater. Since this is not the case, we should either reraise or fold preflop.
Continued below...
Given that the table is 7-handed, the UTG raise is actually the first Middle Position seat and we should assign them a default MP1 raising range (approx 15% of all hands). Our hand does very well against this range, plus we can still create fold equity with our reshove.
We can potentially increase our stack size by nearly half when we take down the pot uncontested, so reshoving will be a very profitable line. When our all-in is called, we still win the pot nearly half the time.
Moving all-in is the best play
How would you play it?
Share your answer in the comments below!
WHAT IS A STRATEGY EPISODE?
When we started LearnWPT, our goal was to make it as easy as possible for anyone to improve their game in their spare time.
That’s why we present our Members with poker “lessons” via Strategy Videos so they can elevate their games by watching a short video on a phone, tablet, or personal computer.
Strategy Episodes are presented in short, easy to digest segments (usually 10-15 minutes) that focus on introducing and reinforcing specific aspects of the LearnWPT game plan.
Tune in today for just $5 your First Month and improve your game!