Having Only a Flush and Facing a River Check-Raise All-In
Here's a hand from a $1,000 buy-in tournament, one that came early on when the effective stacks were around 100 big blinds in which I played suited connectors from late position.
It folded to me in the cutoff where I raised 3x to 300 with 8♠7♠ and the blinds both called, both of whom were unknown players to me.
The flop came K♠8♣4♠, giving me middle pair and a flush draw, and after being checked to I chose to bet 600 (two-thirds pot) thinking both about my flush draw and the fact that I didn't have a great kicker to go with my pair. Only the big blind called.
With 2,100 in the middle the turn came the 5♠, giving me the flush, and my opponent checked. Here my focus shifted to thinking about getting value for my big hand. I bet 1,400 (which looking back I think is more than I should have), my opponent called, and we went to the river with 4,900 in the pot.
The 9♣ completed the board, my opponent checked one more time, and again thinking about value I bet 3,000. That's when my opponent check-raised all in for 7,700, meaning if I called I'd be putting my last 4,000 at risk.
Do you find that you usually call or fold in this situation? It is certainly a dicey one! See what I did and listen to how I talk through my river decision:
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,700,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
