9♠8♠ SB vs BTN, flop on T♠ 7♠ 7♦, 95 bb
The spot
- You: SB
- Opponent: BTN
- Your hand: 9♠8♠
- Board: T♠ 7♠ 7♦
- Effective stack: 95 bb
- Pot: 13.5 bb
6‑max reg battle node with meaningful frequency tradeoffs.
Best core-reg decision?
See the answer
Best play: Raise
Why
T♠7♠7♦ is a paired, two-spade board where the BTN raiser keeps a range edge but cannot have many strong made hands; hero is OOP in the SB. With 9♠8♠ hero has no pair but a powerful draw: the spade flush draw (T♠7♠ give the flush 9 outs) plus an open-ended straight draw (J or 6 completes 9‑8‑7‑T). With this much equity and good blockers to the trips/overpairs that continue, check-raising as a semi-bluff is correct — it builds the pot and applies pressure while hero is still drawing live.
Key idea
On a paired draw-heavy board OOP, a combo draw is the ideal check‑raise semi-bluff: equity when called, fold equity when not.
Common mistake
Just check-calling the combo draw, surrendering the fold equity and the chance to charge the BTN's weak range OOP.