Here are the questions, answers, and explanations from our facing double barrel quiz.

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Question #1

🔲 Fold

✅ Call

🔲 Raise

This medium-strength hand is strong enough to call against a double barrel. The ace blocks a good portion of the button's value-betting ranges (AK, AQ, etc), the gutshot straight draw gives us some backup equity in case we are behind, and the button still has many possible bluffs in his range (straight draws and flush draws).

If we fold a hand this strong hand, bluffing becomes very profitable for the button and our strategy becomes exploitable.

Raising is a big mistake since all better hands will call and all worse hands will fold.

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Question #2

🔲 Fold

🔲 Call

✅ Raise

This hand is somewhat close between a raise and a call. Against most opponents, we should raise to extract value (albeit somewhat thin) and to deny the equity of the button's bluffing hands.

If the button is a very aggressive player, calling is a good option because it keeps his bluffs in the hand and allows him to continue betting on the river.

Folding is out of the question with such a strong and disguised hand.

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Question #3

✅ Fold

🔲 Call

🔲 Raise

Bottom pair with no redraw simply isn’t strong enough to call against a double barrel, so we should fold.

Raising with this hand would be a terrible idea given that K3 does not block a significant portion of the button’s value range and we have better bluffing options in our range, such as 96 suited, 76 suited, and 6♣ 5♣. That's not to say that we should always raise those hands, but they are much better options.

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Question #4

✅ Fold

🔲 Call

🔲 Raise

This marginal hand should be folded against a double barrel for a few reasons:

• Our opponent’s bluffing range still has a lot of equity, frequently having 10+ outs.
• It doesn't block many value hands (just A5 and 55) while blocking some of the button's most likely bluffing hands (87, 76).
• There are some reverse implied odds because our outs to improve are not clean (for example, we could hit two pair on a river 7 and lose a big pot versus A9).

While raising as a bluff is not a terrible idea, there are better hands with which to do so (like K♠ 5♠ and Q♠ 5♠, which have more equity and do a better job blocking the button's value range).

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Question #5

🔲 Fold

✅ Call

🔲 Raise

This pair plus flush draw has a lot of equity versus the button's betting range. If he's bluffing, we have the best hand. If he's value-betting, we have a solid chance to take the lead on the river.

Raising with this hand would be a profitable move, but it's a much worse option than calling because few better hands will fold and even fewer worse hands will call. If we're going to check-raise with a semi-bluff on this turn, it makes more sense to do so with a non-made hand like 7♠ 6♠.

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Question #6

🔲 Fold

🔲 Call

✅ Raise

This drawing hand is not strong enough to call against a double barrel since it doesn’t have any showdown value.

However, folding is on the tight side because we have 8 outs to improve to a straight and we block the button's most likely straight (QT). Folding isn't a mistake, but by raising we will force folds from many better hands such as K♦ 7♦ or ATo.

The factors above combined with the fact that most players over-fold versus aggression makes this hand a great check-raising candidate.

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Question #7

🔲 Fold

✅ Call

🔲 Raise

This medium strength hand is strong enough to call against a double barrel because:

• J5 blocks a good portion of the button’s value-betting range.
• The button has a ton of missed hands in his range with which he might bluff.
• Our open-ended straight draw provides some nice backup equity in case we're behind.

Folding such a strong hand would make bluffing very profitable for the button and open up our strategy to exploitation.

Raising is a definite mistake since all better hands will call and all worse hands will fold.

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Question #8

🔲 Fold

✅ Call

🔲 Raise

This medium-strength hand is simply too strong to fold given how many hands in our opponent’s range have missed on this turn. Plus, this hand is quite high in our range, so if we fold it, bluffing becomes very profitable for the button and our strategy becomes exploitable.

Raising doesn’t make sense because we will get called exclusively by better hands and force folds from most worse hands.

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Question #9

✅ Fold

🔲 Call

🔲 Raise

This turn greatly strengthens our opponent’s range. At the same time, we will have many better hands (such as T♦ 9♠, 7♠ 7x, flushes, and straights) with which to continue against this double barrel. This means that, unlike in question #8, we are no longer obliged to call with this specific hand.

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Question #10

🔲 Fold

✅ Call

🔲 Raise

We have an extremely strong draw with some showdown value, which makes it a perfect fit for our calling range as played. To top it off we have amazing implied odds because when we hit the flush on the river, we will be able to check-raise big for value and win the biggest possible pot against the button’s weaker flushes.

Raising is a profitable decision as well (you can't really go wrong with high-equity hands like this), but calling will win slightly more chips in the long run.

Flop note: When we face a small c-bet size on a flop that is good for our range, like in this hand, we should check-raise at a high frequency (including with high equity hands like Ah 7h).

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