DECISION POINT: In a passive live $1/$2 cash game an Early Position player calls and you limp with 3♥3♦ from MP1. MP2 raises to $16, action folds to the Big Blind who calls, and you call. The A♣T♦3♠ flop gets checked around. On th 9♥ turn the Big Blind checks, you bet $20, and only MP2 calls. On the 8♠ river you bet $44, MP2 raises to $144, and action is on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing in a passive $1/$2 game. We’ve built our stack to over $425 and there are two other stacks in the $400+ range with everyone else having around $200. We are dealt 3♥3♦ in the UTG+1 seat. The UTG player limps.

Utilizing our calling criteria, we recognize this is a spot where we have a speculative hand in a multiway pot where we can call for a very small percentage of the effective stack. Pocket threes are unlikely to be significantly ahead of a UTG limping range, so just calling makes the most sense. We call and MP2 raises to $16. Everyone else folds except the Big Blind.

In a passive game this raise is likely to represent a very narrow range, which helps our implied odds a lot. Evaluating the situation under our calling criteria again, we still have a speculative hand in a multiway pot, although this time the call amount is much larger. It is still significantly less than 5% of the effective stacks however so we call again. It’s also important to note that we are in a great relative position postflop. While MP2 will have the ultimate position by acting last, it's most likely that both preflop callers will check to the preflop raiser. If they continuation bet we will get to act after the Big Blind, giving us relative position in one of the most common postflop spots.

The flop is A♣T♦3♠ and we hit our set. The Big Blind checks and action is on us. This is the kind of flop that connects heavily with MP2’s range so if we check we can expect them to continuation bet often. We do check, and to our surprise MP2 also checks. The turn is the 9♥ and the Big Blind checks again.

At this point we need to start building a pot to try and win the maximum with our set. When MP2 doesn’t c-bet it is likely to indicate a majority of their range consists of JJ-KK type hands. We would want to bet a little less than half pot in a multi-way scenario by default, and prefer a sizing closer to 40% of the pot specifically against the assumed range for MP2. We bet $20, MP2 calls and the Big Blind folds.

The river is the 8♠ which does bring in a QJs straight draw, however this hand is unlikely to be a part of MP2’s preflop raising range. At this point we just want to continue to extract as much value as we can, so we bet $44 into the $91 pot and MP2 raises to $144. The initial temptation is to try and shovel all the money in every time we flop a set. When considering MP2’s range a little deeper, it’s very unlikely that they made this isolation raise preflop in a passive game with a hand like A8s, and it’s even less likely they would call a river shove with those Ax combinations.

Our opponent's range is mostly polarized to include slowplayed made hands such as AA/TT/ATs, an infrequent 88 that got there on the river, or a hand like JJ that they may be turning into a complete bluff. Against a polarized range that consists almost entirely of hands that are super far ahead of us or super far behind us, it doesn’t make sense to raise. All the hands we beat will quickly fold and all the hands that beat us will quickly call.

While folding could be okay against passive players that would never or rarely raise with a worse hand, we are getting very close to 3:1 pot odds so our opponent doesn’t have to show up with ATs or a bluff very often to make calling profitable. That leaves calling as the best play.

Calling is the best play.