DECISION POINT: Preflop it folds to the Hijack who raises. The Cutoff folds and you reraise with Q♠Q♥. The Small Blind folds, the Big Blind calls, and the Hijack calls. The flop comes J♥2♦5♠. The Big Blind checks, the Hijack checks, and you bet. The Big Blind check-raises, and the Hijack folds. Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: In this 6-handed cash game, we reraised on the button with QQ after the initial raise from the Hijack seat. The Big Blind cold-called our reraise and the Hijack called as well. After continuation betting on a scattered Jack high board, the Big Blind chooses to make a small check-raise. We have to decide between folding, calling or reraising.

Given the remaining stack sizes, we will likely get stacks all-in on the turn if we choose to call. We are effectively deciding between taking this hand to an all-in showdown or folding now.

Our opponent chose to cold-call a preflop 3-bet from the Big Blind. This typically indicates a narrow hand range consisting of hands like big pairs or big broadway cards. A range of TT+, AQ+ would be a reasonable estimate.

On the flop, this check-raise represents an even narrower hand range, often JJ+. Our QQ is way behind this range and we should fold as a default play in this situation.

Without any solid historical opponent information to change this range, folding is the best play. We would need information that our opponent both cold-calls preflop 3-bets with wide hand ranges AND chooses to check-raise flops with wide hand ranges in order to continue with our QQ here.

Opponents that do both of these things are rare, so folding is the correct play.

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