Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to pay to see a flop, particularly when you see aggression from a normally passive opponent.

In a $3/$5 no-limit hold ’em cash game, a tight, straightforward player with a chip stack of $300 limped from first position. Everyone folded around to our Hero, who raised to $35 from the button with A Q.

I am fine with Hero’s raise, especially if he thinks the limper is unlikely to slow-play a premium hand in an attempt to trap. Raising frequently results in the opponent either just calling or folding with an inferior hand, allowing Hero to extract significant value with what is often the best hand at the moment.

But neither of those things happened this time. The blinds folded, and the initial limper reraised to $100. Hero called.

When facing a limp/reraise, Hero should fold all but the most premium hands unless he is confident that his opponent is the sort of player who will occasionally get way out of line with his betting. Even if Hero thinks his opponent might be semi-bluffing with, say, A 5 or J 10, Hero should still fold.

Based on track record, it’s likely that this opponent was the type of player who would be happy to win a small pot with his best hands because he is deathly afraid of getting outdrawn. Do not fall in love with your hand just because it is fairly strong and you are getting decent pot odds while in position. If your opponent’s range consists of only A-A, K-K and Q-Q, folding is the only play that makes sense.

If instead of being tight and straightforward, the opponent was loose, active and maniacal, Hero should have gone all in, ideally making the opponent fold any hand that would win less than 50 percent of the time against A-Q.

The flop came J 10 6. Hero’s opponent pushed all in, betting his remaining $200.

While a gutshot straight draw with overcards is normally a decent hand (because it has roughly 10 outs against top pair), it is far from an ideal hand in this situation. Hero will lose to all big pairs, as well as A-K and A-J. The only semi-realistic hand that he is ahead of is K-Q, and almost no one limp/reraises K-Q. Instead of having 10 somewhat live outs, Hero most likely has only four or seven outs, since his hand is likely to be dominated in some way.

This should have been an easy fold for Hero, given that he was getting only 2-to-1 pot odds. He needs to win 33 percent of the time for a call to make sense, and unless the opponent is a lunatic, Hero will only win in this spot about 25 percent of the time.

Hero called. His opponent showed K K. The turn and river blanked, and Hero lost a huge hand.

Against a player who had shown conservative tendencies earlier in the game, folding before the flop would have avoided what proved to be a costly mistake.