DECISION POINT: In a live $2/$5 cash game action folds to a Middle Position player who raises to $40, the Hijack and Cutoff fold and the Button calls. The Small Blind folds and you reraise to $140 with Q♠Q♣ from the Big Blind, MP2 calls, and the Button folds. You bet $140 on the T♥J♠Q♦ flop and your opponent calls. The turn is 7♠ and action is on you. What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a 10 handed $2/$5 cash game and we’ve managed to build our stack up to $2,000. The rest of the table has $500 except for MP2 who has $1,600. We are dealt QsQc in the Big Blind and it folds to MP2 who opens to $40. Everyone folds to the Button who cold calls and the Small Blind folds.

An 8BB raise preflop is a fairly large standard raise size which means MP2 should be opening a narrower range than they otherwise might if the standard raise were $15-$20. That being said, queens should still be well ahead of our opponent's range here and warrants a raise.

A standard raise is 3x the original raise amount then add in the call amount. We also often increase this amount for being out of position. This would mean a standard 3-bet would be in the $160-$200 range. If we were against all $500 stacks we could make it smaller since the shallow stacks would allow a smaller sizing to still put our opponents to a meaningful decision. In the moment, however, we only make it $140 and MP2 calls and the Button folds.

The flop is ThJsQd and we flop top set. With a stack to pot ratio (SPR) of just over 4 and a very coordinated board with a lot of turn scare cards (any Ace, King, 9, or 8 makes the board quite scary for both us and our opponent) there is no reason to get fancy here and slow play. We continuation bet to $140 and our opponent calls.

The turn is the 7s. This is a spot where many cash players start to see monsters under the bed. We started this hand over 300 big blinds deep and we have the 4th best possible hand (behind AK/K9/T9) and realistically our opponent may not flat with AK all of the time (many players 4-bet AK) and K9s is unlikely to be a hand they would have. T9s is possible but still a bit unlikely.

We also need to think about this situation relative to the pot size and not just the fact that we started 300BBs deep. When the SPR is 4-5 a hand like top set, even on a coordinated board, is more than enough to go with as we will be pot committed long before enough aggressive actions are taken here to narrow our opponent’s range to only hands that beat us. Hands like JJ/TT/KQs/AQ are still a big part of our opponent's range and just giving a river free card that potentially beats us or kills our action is a huge mistake.

We absolutely must bet again and unless we just have a very accurate read that our opponent can only move all-in with a straight here we are pot committed. Too many players take a passive line in spots like this and love too much value just to avoid the handful of times they run into AK here.

Betting is the best play.