Turned a Big Draw, what do you do here?

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Decision Point:
In a Tournament, a Middle Position player raises, and it folds to you on the Button. You reraise with A♦J♦. It folds around to the MP player who calls. The Flop comes 10♦7♦Q♠. The MP player checks and you bet. The MP player calls. The Turn is the 9♣. MP checks. Action is on you, what do you do here?

Pro Answer: Three players away from the money bubble in an online tournament, you reraise a Middle Position player with AJ suited on the Button. The MP1 Player calls both your reraise and your c-bet after you flop a combo draw. The turn brings you additional outs and they check to you.

Continued below...

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This is a good opportunity to execute a turn second barrel all-in with your big draw. You saw a flop heads up with your opponent and you can credibly represent a big pair or a set.

Given that there are only three players to go until the money bubble, your all-in shove should create plenty of fold equity. In other words, you should be able to cause your opponent to fold a reasonably high percentage of the time.

Big draws are ideal hands with which to make these sorts of moves, since when you fail to cause your opponent to fold, you can still win by hitting your hand on the river. Since you threaten their tournament life with this move, you will often get them to fold many of their one pair hands.

Note the importance of bet sizing when planning ahead for future streets. On the flop, we bet around 2/3 of the pot in order to set up a logical turn shove amount of slightly less than the pot. Had we bet less on the flop (say ⅓ the pot), we would have more than the pot left in effective stacks.

These are the types of plays that winning tournament players are willing to make on the bubble. Winning players may sometimes lose their stack on the bubble due to aggressive play, but when they cash, they tend to have larger stack sizes that can propel them to deeper runs and more final tables.

Moving all-in as a semi-bluff is the best play.

How would you play it?
Share your answer in the comments below!


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