Q♦J♦ on the Flop, what do you do here?

QJ Flush Draw vs Flop Bet and Raise-optimized.gif

Decision Point: In a Cash Game, it’s folded to you in the Cutoff Seat with Q♦J♦. You raise, the Button folds, the Small Blind reraises, and the Big Blind Calls. You call. The Flop comes K♠2♦3♦. The Small Blind leads out and the Big Blind raises. Action is on you, what do you do here?

Pro Answer: Whenever you flop a flush draw and there is action ahead of you, be sure to check your pot odds. In this case, it costs you $150 to call with $275 in the pot for pot odds of a little worse than 2-1. However, if you call, you are not guaranteed to see a turn card, since the original bettor could reraise.

Even if that weren’t the case, you may not have sufficient implied odds to call since a flush is a very obvious draw. Calling will not be a profitable play in the long term, which leaves either folding or reraising as options.

In order for reraising to be profitable, we must be able to reasonably expect our opponents to both fold a decent percentage of the time when we reraise.

Given that our opponent in the Big Blind chose to raise more than a third of their stack in a multiway pot, it is less likely that they will fold if we reraise. That makes reraising an unprofitable play.

Despite flopping a flush draw, folding is the best play given the action in this hand.

How would you play it?
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