T♠7♠ in a Multiway Pot, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a Tournament where blinds are 100/200 an Early Position player limps and you call from Middle Position with 7♠T♠. The Cutoff calls, the Small Blind completes, and the Big Blind checks. The flop comes 2♦J♣8♠ and it checks to the UTG+1 player who bets $200. Action is on you, what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: In a Tournament with 100/200 blinds and no ante we are dealt T7s in Middle Position. UTG folds and UTG+1 just calls. Our preflop call is probably a little on the loose side by default given the effective stack is around 30BBs and there are still multiple players to act behind us, many of whom could raise. If we had information that this was a passive table where our opponents were unlikely to raise and we were very likely to see a flop in this situation, then this would be one of the hands we should consider calling with.
We do decide to call, as do the Cutoff and Small Blind, and we see a flop with 5 players. The flop is 2dJc8s which gives us a gutshot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw. Action is checked to UTG+1 who makes a min-bet of 200. We have 4 outs to a gutshot here and essentially a “fifth” out to the backdoor flush draw.
Continued below...
Even with just the gutshot we would need to be getting about 12:1 pot + implied odds here, meaning we would have to be able to win a 2400 chip pot in this hand to justify calling 200 chips. With 1200 already in the pot this does not seem unreasonable given 2 more streets of betting.
We do have to worry about the other players left to act, and at active tables where there is more likely to be a raise from opponents behind us this is a fold. However, assuming we are at a more passive table since we called preflop and in spite of the fact that we only likely have 4 outs, this is a good low risk/high reward spot to call.
Calling is the best play.
How would you play it?
Share your answer in the comments below!
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