Villain is 35 year old rec player who has been very loose preflop with calling and raising. He's shown down marginal hands and made loose calls.

Hero stack $500, Villain Covers.

MP limps, Villain Raises to $12 on the button, Hero in SB calls AQo, MP calls.

Flop $39 - AQ7r

checks around

Turn $39 - T

hero checks (thought about leading but thought villain would def take a stab), MP checks, Villain bets $15. Hero Calls, MP Folds.

River $69 - 5
hero leads for $35 (looking to get looked up by Ax or Qx). Villain raises to $160. Hero ???


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thought about check calling river, but I thought villain would check back too many hands I beat given that I checked the flop and turn.

Wow you have to at least lead the turn when flop checks around.

As playted call river. Your hand is crazily underrepped here.

I would lead turn. As played, I would likely fold on river. KJ would be a good hand for him not to cbet on the flop and he got there on the turn. Also he could have been slow playing a set on the flop. I think all other hands that you can beat would cbet on the flop.

Agree that my hand is severely under-repped here checking 2 streets. Would you say that AQ (top 2 pair) is at the top of my range of calling here this river?

Do you think I should be folding all 2 pairs and only calling with sets or straights to his river raise.

Unlikely villain has a set since we block both AA and QQ. Only other combination would be 77.

Anyone like a 3b to iso here?

AP I agree lead the turn.

AP on the turn, x/r the turn. He has shown down marginal hands and we have a monster. Let's get some money in the middle.

AP through the river, there's 264 in the pot and it costs 125 to call. Getting 2:1, make the call.

I agree it is a real tough spot. I would want to know more about villains cbet frequency and style before I would want to commit.

3b pre, lead turn, and take donking rivers and turns after x/c'ing out of your game.

I'm intrigued. Why no x/c, donk lines?

I'd probably lean to a 3bet preflop. Drawback is that we're building a big pot OOP to someone who is probably a non-ABC player. Pros are that we are likely ahead of his raising range and can take this down now or on the flop. Flatting could bring along MP (which is probably meh), and also leaves us in tricky spots when we whiff flop, although it also keeps in dominated hands.

SPR is around 12.5 on the flop. If we want to play for stacks, one way to do this is to PSB each street. Otherwise, we're probably going to have to check/raise a street (and get called). Donking does lose a cbet from aggro Villain, but in a 3way pot I think I lean towards hoping one of my opponents has an Ace and just donk this.

By the turn things are getting a little scarier, as some hands have now moved ahead. Still think I'd lean towards donking.

If we're taking a bluffcatcher line on the turn, then I think I'd rather continue with that line and check to induce.

As played, even though we've played the hand strangely and our river bet is a fairly small 1/2 PSB, we've just got raised on the river (which is typically nuttish for most opponents). We're basically ahead of QT that might play it this way, no? If he's aggro clicking buttons I probably look him up but I don't feel great about it.

Gwholehandcouldofbeenplayeddifferently,imoG

This; except for sometimes in live poker you are going to have to donk lead the next street after x/c'ing both as value and a bluff due to the nature of live players all being showdown monkeys (not necessarily this spot, just in general imo)

Definitely lead turn, it looks bluffy and you'll get looked up by everything. If you check turn I think you need to raise for value.

AP I'd lead river bigger, 3/4pot-pot. Not folding to the raise, if he has KJ wp but this could easily be something like AT betting for value.

This in itself is a good reason to raise PF, so we don't end up with the worst possible SPR for our hand (and OOP to boot).

Because it's obvious what you're trying to do, and any attentive player will realize that. And if you donk all your good hands, what does that say about your checking range?

Besides, hardly anyone ever does this as a bluff, so people can very easily counter your strategy

Yeah, you could say we can add more bluffs into our range, but donking out when your opponent is betting (he's saying he has a bluff or a strong hand, i.e polarized), doesnt make a ton of sense

I prefer 3bet pre to iso as well, your hand is way ahead of BTN's range in general

AP I'd lead turn, AP I'd c/r turn for sure. The reason to check the turn was to win a bet from V, right? So he did it, time to raise it and put money in this pot. If he holds TP he will be the one having to make a difficult decision and not you. When you call turn what are your intentions? To win a bet you are sure that V was going to make on the river? if so you should c/c river and not lead.

Anyway, it looks to me like you don't have a plan for the hand and are just reacting to your opponents actions. I'd like to take control of this hand once I flop top 2 pair.

Good points; thank you.

I agree with your point about observant opponents assuming this is strong. Indeed, that's when I tend to do this.

I'm not sure I agree that donking never makes sense. OOP we have limited weapons. If we're never donking out (or only doing so with strong hands), we're denying ourselves one of the options.

The fact that a range is polarized doesn't mean we can't bluff into it. It just means that the weak part has to be big enough that we'll get the folds we need.

And, of course, not every LLSNL V is observant

I'd agree with not donking only strong hands into observant opponents, but I think donking strong hands into unobservant opponents is useful, and that donking a somewhat balanced range into observant opponents is also useful. Indeed, if an observant opponent notes that you never donk after you x/c, he knows he can probably choose a free card whenever you check (unless you x/r).

^^ Im saying we shouldn't x/c donk, not that we should never donk out flops/turns/rivers. The latter is much more acceptable and a useful line to use.

About your last point. X/r'ing turns is a much more valuable play than taking a x/c donk line. If he's bluffing, you collect more money from his dbl barrel. If he has a good hand, you're stacking him. X/c & donking allows neither of these to occur. You let him fold his bluffs, which he may continue to bluff with. And you let him continue with hands that have good equity vs you or crush you. You're helping him make better decisions against you

That's just from an exploitative POV. From a GTO/balance POV, it's actually almost impossible to create a solid, sound strategy that includes x/c'ing any street and donking out the next street that is balanced and unexploitable. That's not the main point, but even from an exploitative POV, it's still generally pretty bad.

Thanks, I appreciate your thoughts.

I agree with some of your points. There are certainly times when x/c the flop and donking the turn can lead to helping V play better.

However I also think there are times when we can use it to our advantage.

Just for illustrative purposes, imagine a two-suit flop and a V that tends to check back decent hands for pot control. If the third card of the suit comes and we have it, we might well not want him to control the pot. If we don't have it, we might choose to bluff at it with the threat of further river action. Removing x/c, donk from the playbook eliminates these options.

As another example, imagine the same flop with a V that likes to lead the flop to get a free turn card. We might well want to donk a blank turn.

Neither of these proves, nor is intended to try to prove, anything. They're just illustrations of times that we might want to x/c, donk.

My point is just that I think there are times it's a useful line. There are also clearly times it's not a useful line. I'm not saying it should be the cornerstone of our strategy, just that I wouldn't entirely take it out of the playbook.

In any case, you've given me some things to think about. And perhaps I'll eventually conclude you're right.

I had a small timing tell that villain was taking his time assembling a very large river raise and thinking about the sizing. In this case, I thought there were minimal bluffs in his range, and he was strictly raising for value.

Even though I had severely under-repped my hand, I chose to make a big fold and Villain showed KJ, a turned straight.

I definitely think I didn't plan out the hand well as I probably should have 3 bet preflop, lead the turn, and check/called the river. This is a good example of how being out of position and overthinking the hand caused me to play poorly.

I feel like I'm definitely having trouble playing these types of AQ, JJ type hands from the SB. Are you always 3 betting them preflop?

Definitely not. I'm more likely to 3-bet JJ than AQ. The more callers already in the pot, the more likely I am to 3-bet either of these hands, especially if that sets up stack sizes that allows me to make a stack-committing c-bet. As stacks get deeper I'm more likely to flat both hands. More likely to flat them head's up too, and more likely flat an early position/tight raiser. More likely to raise AQo and flat AQs. There are some spots where AQo is probably a fold to a single raise in the SB, though that's pretty tight and tough for me to have the discipline to actually execute in game. AQ, especially AQo, is a very tricky hand to play when facing a raise, especially out of position. If you hit your ace you always have the possibility of being up against AK, so hard to love any flop unless it has a Q on it. Your straight draws that use both cards are almost always just a gut shot (unless flop is JT8 or something). There are definitely spots where JJ is effectively a set-mine hand or one that you want to pot control, and I do that relatively frequently, though more often in position than OOP. Don't think I'd ever fold JJ to a single raise pre.

In your hand I'd 3-bet to $40 given that you have a loose opener on the button, you'll be OOP the whole hand and flatting invites another person into the pot against whom you're also OOP and who has better relative position to the raiser.

This is one spot I actually disagree with PNLHE with regards to SPR, in that it thinks an SPR of ~13 is horrendous due to stacks being in play with 3 PSBs. I think an SPR of 13 is actually fine, due to the fact that very few opponents PSB each street (especially later ones), and when someone does it is usually a monster protecting against draws and we can lay TP down. So I actually think we have a fair amount of bet/fold wiggle room with SPRs of ~13.

The far more troublesome SPRs with TP hands are 6-9, imo, as it is trivial to play for stacks with 3 streets of very reasonable betting (where it will be unclear whether our TPTK is good or not).

GimoG

Very good point about the PSBs vs smaller sizing. However, in this hand 3betting would have gotten us to SPR 4-6 on the flop, right? The hand just plays itself after that.

x/c donk is such a silly annoying line.

3bet pre, 3bet pre, 3bet pre.

Bet the turn

As played, I prefer x/c or x/r-fold river depending on V's betsize.

Yeah, to me it is almost always KJ or a bluff mixed in. I would assume he would cbet with any A and probably with any Q. It is unlikely that he had a set, and even if he did, I don't think he would check the flop with 2 broadway cards on board. You are almost just bluff catching in this spot even with your underrepped hand.

Didn't read the replies but villain raised your bet almost 6x on the river. This is KJ or a set %99 of the time. I'd fold.

I play 6-max, but I almost exclusively 3b or fold my SB. Especially once you're more solid postflop, it really boosts your redline and ultimately, your winrate.

It's probably good to call all of your PP vs raises though besides the premiums though, since it's almost guaranteed it's going to go 10-ways to the flop. And you're going to stack at least one or two donks a good % of the time you flop a set