-
Interesting spot. When I’m facing a small bet with multiple callers, one of the questions I like to ask myself is: what are my gin cards (both for my hand and for my range)? I guess the answer here for our hand is 7s or Js. But even those cards are tricky to know how to proceed with. For our range, I’d argue the best cards are any non-spades between the 2 and 8.
But no turn is ideal for us. This is especially tricky because this was limped preflop, which means ranges are wide across the board. So while this board isn’t that great for anyone, it likely favors us. Our opponents can have 8 or 9 or flush draws (and maybe a set of 22), but we can have all the 8/9/flush draws. Because I’m going to face a lot of uncertainty on a lot of turns, and because I have two back door draws with overs, this is a hand I want to either jump ship with or take it down/get heads up now.
I like a raise here to 5bb. It’s a cheap and doesn’t kill my stack if I have to fold to a shove. This is that classic leverage moment where I can use a smaller bet to threaten entire stacks. My opponents have shown a lot of weakness, especially button, and I should be able to take this down a lot. Obviously if anyone shoves, I’m out. If HJ calls my raise and I don’t gain any equity on the turn, I’m done with the hand. If a spade or 7 or J comes on the turn, I’m putting their likely 8 or 9 to the test. If a K or 10 comes, I’m trying to navigate to showdown if I can.
