A♠8♠ BB vs BTN, turn on A♣ 7♦ 3♥ 9♠, 50 bb
The spot
- You: BB
- Opponent: BTN
- Your hand: A♠8♠
- Board: A♣ 7♦ 3♥ 9♠
- Effective stack: 50 bb
- Pot: 12 bb
Hero evaluates exploit leverage versus player-image assumptions.
Choose the strongest HU postflop strategy.
See the answer
Best play: Call
Why
The 9♠ turn on A♣7♦3♥ adds a spade and a few straight/two-pair combos but mostly bricks; in a HU single-raised pot the BTN barrels a wide range of worse aces, busted draws and air into this ace-high board. Out of position hero holds A♠8♠ — top pair of aces with an eight kicker plus the nut-flush blocker via the A♠. Check to the BTN and call: top pair beats the BTN's many barreling bluffs and worse A-x, and the holding is too strong to fold against such a wide, bluff-heavy turn betting range.
Key idea
Top pair OOP is a comfortable check-call down in HU — the IP barrel range is packed with worse aces and bluffs.
Common mistake
Raising top pair weak kicker for 'value' and isolating yourself against only better aces while folding out all the bluffs.