First I'll just give you the hand:

1/2/4 private game in Cambodia, 9 handed

Hero (MP) - 600
Villain (CO) - 700

Folds to me, I open for 20 with JJ The A gets exposed in the mucks before CO calls. BU and blinds fold.

Flop Q65 (47 in pot)

I bet 25, he calls.

Turn Q658 (97 in pot)

I bet 55, he fairly quickly raises to 135. I think and call.

River Q6585 (367 in pot)

I check, he thinks a bit and bets 290, leaving about 130, I call.

***

Reads: Villain is a Cambodian donk in his early thirties. I don't really have specific reads on him, only appearance, and that he's been loose pre. I am a big believer in statistical profiling, so I'm operating under the assumption that he is a Typical Youngish Asian Donk (TYAD). TYAD tendencies relevant to this hand is that they tend to overbluff in a lot of spots (not necessarily in all spots) and yet are not very good at getting value from strong-but-not-nut hands. I really believe that on the river there's an excellent chance he doesn't bet with a straight, especially for such a large size.

The reason I wanted to have a general discussion about paying off donks in spots like this is that there's nothing especially good about my hand that makes it a good bluff catcher, except that it beats all bluffs. I suppose it's decent that I don't have a club, so it should make his turn raising range slightly more semibluff-heavy. I'm a little concerned that a hand with such poor playability should just be folded on the turn, even for only 80 more. I think that would be the "standard" advice for this hand, and I'm tempted to agree with it.

Obviously when I get the best possible river in the deck (other than J), I'm never folding, but I am curious about anyone's thoughts on which non-club rivers will be folds to a big bet.


P.S. Bet or check turn is worth discussion too. I chose to bet because I think his range is very weak and full of draws and worse pairs that will call, and I think it makes the hand generally play out better for me. Tiny example, if he has KQ/AQ I lose two bets by checking, and only one by betting. I would probably check call if I had the J, since there's a bit less need to protect and since I river more valuable sets.

Yeah I agree with the horrible playability of JJ on most rivers. The 9x hands in your range would be better continuing hands on the turn.

I think when I bet/call the turn I call all non-club rivers. If he really is the type of player you think he is he will prob continue bluffing on virtually everything, especially the overs and straight cards. I think it is less likely that he value bets his current strong hands when these uber-scare cards hit as well. Also if he did have a combo draw I think he'd be more likely to just call the turn because people are far more likely to simply call hands with that much equity on turns, which leads me to believe he has some garbage 5 or 6 a lot of the time.

Bet or check turn can go either way imo. In this type of game I probably lean towards betting and in others I would not. I think on the turn b/f might be best here though. He can certainly have all sets and straights and a bunch of two pairs given his preflop tendencies.

You clearly know your man better than we do. The flat flop raise turn is super strong in the US- so I'd fold in a vacuum out here. I do like the turn bet though, and I would call, call against specific players under specific circumstances.

You have to be a zillion times better than your opponents in a 1/2/4 game.

Oh, gross, the turn was an 8, not a 9. Pretty large difference. And I can't edit the post. Mod pls?

What are you doing playing this game btw? Genuinely interested.

Bit of a long story. Short version is life circumstances have led me to settle in Phnom Penh for at least the near future, and I'm coming off of a massive breakeven stretch so I can't comfortably play much higher than 2/5. This is the biggest holdem game in town, there's a much bigger omaha that I'm nowhere nearly comfortable playing.

Cambodia live poker scene prob deserves its own thread. Sounds super interesting and have a bunch of questions. I spent some time in Sihanoukville... really crazy place.

The veterans got to this hand before I could, but FWIW I think turn bet is mandatory and if we call turn raise we have to call river bet when everything misses.

Agree Baluga Theorem comes into play here (flat flop / raise turn = nuts) but not sure if that might be a US/online population tendency. Still, I think there's a case for a turn fold because his semi-bluff range is pretty narrow... It kind of has to be a draw on the flop that picked up equity, like A8cc or 78. Lot more Q8, 88, 79, 86 in his range than semi-bluffs that improved on the turn.

Our bluffcatcher only really matters if he bets Q8 on the river. He could be turning 68 into a bluff as well which would be sweet.

I'd start by checking flop
You've got aa/kk/qx/Qqq/666/555/ To start building a value cbet range here and you can appropriately add some non pair draws as bluffs here and u have a prty nice flop strategy
Don't see any need to start throwing in hands like this to bet flop witH
I'd be checking some of my weakest qx and pairs like this as a default
If I did cbet flop I'd check turn and try for two streets that way (especially on this riv)

As played I'd just fold turn and fold pretty fast 2 riv don't think he shows your random air enough to make me wanna call

I def think Baluga theorem is more of an online phenomenon. In live poker I'm very reluctant to give young Asian donks credit for a narrow range when they rep it. That's for better or worse. As a semi-related aside, I basically NEVER fold in this game when someone "reps a set," and that's worked out pretty well for me so far.

In this hand, though, he does rep a fairly large amount of nutty combos on the turn, but I kind of felt that his super nutty stuff would raise larger on a one card oesd board with a flush draw. In the hand I called turn because price + visibility, expecting the subset of young asian players that is raising light on the turn to massively overbluff the brick rivers often enough to offset the times that I am paying off the subset of young asian players that isn't bluffing often enough here. In short, to induce the most mistakes and hope enough of them happen that I can realize 80 dollars from the river pot, on average.

can u talk about flop? im interested why you chose cbet over check there

Check flop is something that becomes a thing when your opponents aren't weak, passive players. I think against fish, betting is just best because their primary leak is calling too much. A better player will have a tighter range from pre and be less prone to over-defending his range vs c-bets, or will be more likely to put my range in tough spots with floating, raising etc. This guy has probably over 25-30% of hands and is likely to call down to the river with any pair or weak draw, and Qx+ is a much smaller percentage of his range than a reg's range.

Can you explain this sentence Renton? Are you saying when you take a x/turn x/river line its to x/call x/fold respectively?

Also, if this went 3 ways, how do you play flop ip and oop and how do you play if you cbet and get 1 caller?

I really like the way you played the hand fwiw and I'm trying to take more value generating lines like this mainly for your reasons/thinking in your response to ebet33.

If I checked the turn I would probably feel forced to pay off two bets vs this player archetype, and I think he would be much more capable of making thick river value bets with KQ/AQ vs a check/call turn line. Conversely if I bet turn with the intention of check calling the river, there's an excellent chance that KQ/AQ will check behind.

Three way against two fish or against reg + fish I'm generally c-betting. If the fish calls, I'm proceeding the same as if it were HU, since I don't believe the fish is adjusting his calling range very much based on multi-way action. If the reg calls, I'm usually slowing down, but OOP on a turn like this I still see a lot of merit to betting turn with JJ, rather than playing the check call game with only one nutty out. Sometimes it can pay to let a low-playability hand with good showdown value "hide behind" stronger hands in your range to more easily get to showdown while getting some protection and thin value from the opponent's too-loose-to-begin-with range (even regs are generally too loose here).