DECISION POINT: In a Tournament where blinds are 100/200 a Middle Position player (who you’ve observed as being loose aggressive) raises to 600. You call from the Button with Q♣T♣. Heads-up on a J♥5♥7♣ flop your opponent bets out 600 and action is on you.

Did you Fold, Call, or Raise?

PRO ANSWER: We called on the Button non-speculatively with QTs versus a loose aggressive (LAG) player in Middle Position. QT suited is a hand we often play speculatively to flop two pair or better, or a draw of eight outs or more. However when we’re the first caller we are breaking our standard calling criteria and calling non-speculatively.

When we call non-speculatively we must sometimes win the pot postflop even when we don’t hit the flop in a big way. On this particular flop we have several things going for us.

First, this flop is pretty good for our calling range. We have a lot of Jx/66-TT and heart/straight draws in our perceived calling range preflop that connect well with this flop. We also have an overcard, a backdoor flush draw, and a backdoor straight draw. This means that any of the 3 queens, 10 clubs, 3 non-club kings, and 3 non-club 9s increase our equity significantly.

We also see some equity increase when a ten falls on the turn or a non-club ace or eight for a gutshot straight. This is an excellent spot for us to execute a float play. Floating is when we call the flop with a hand that is unlikely to be the best at the moment, but can turn a lot of additional equity as well as win the pot on the turn when our opponent checks and we bet (a term sometimes called float equity).

In this particular spot we can float our opponent and bet when checked to on the turn and pick this pot up quite frequently that way, OR we can turn a significant hand/draw and potentially win that way.

Calling is the best play.