We have position on him...he can't check back anything.

Sorry I meant check to us on the turn.

Turn raise is good. Players with these stats will donk "scary" turns like these all day long, and if they have any part of the board they'll call down. It's almost never a set up for a bet/3bet. The river donk is also very common and I would call and expect to win most of the time.

maybe you missed this:

villian is 97/18/0.0/4.0



easy turn raise and call down a 3bet, this guy is terrible

The turn raise is fine and normal. Villain is playing practically any two cards on this turn and Hero is way ahead of his range. This is especially true if you think Villain would often 3-bet preflop with an ace.

Calling down is an exploitative play designed to punish highly unbalanced players who usually have a big hand or a complete bluff (or some mixture of these two hand types) for this sequence.

It is much more typical for Villain's range to include many draws and small made hands that can be effectively punished with a raise.

In HU blind defense I often bet the turn with a wide range of hands after checkcalling the flop. By betting the turn I gain lots of fold equity for my draws and prevent many ugly free cards when I have something to show ...

... and this is how I get away with it. Many players especially at lower limits want a virtual sure thing before they will raise in this situation. When SB catches you with a weak hand his bet gains heavily and when you actually have something there is rarely any punishment. He pays one bet to see the river either way.

Automatic call on the river. I'm certainly not folding an ace and raising again seems over-the-top.

He is NINETY-SEVEN /18. You should c bet 100%. He'll put in action with so many weaker hands.

Stellar,

Isn't there a big disparity between your c /c flop, donk turn and your c /r flop, bet turn range?

What do you think are the advantages of this instead of just c /r the flop?

Even a 97 vpip doesn't give a2 an equity edge on this board. For the reasons I already stated, unless you know he is not checkraising you much at all, I say checking through on the flop is much better.

Another consideration is simply the pot size philosophy. If you check the turn and he bets into you on the river there may be a large number of board textures that you don't want to call ui with your aces, especially if you've seen him checking to you with busted draws. Well folding 30% or 40% equity getting 2:1 is never a big mistake but getting 3:1 it can be. It's a marginal hand at best, why bloat the pot?

You might be below 50% equity but I just think the hand plays out better by c-betting the flop. Actually, you don't need 50% to justify a bet cause the BB is dead. And there are a ton of spots where you're below 50, but a bet is still best.

If you do save a fraction of a bet on the flop I'd argue you may lose this back and more on the next 2 streets. But having more info on the villain would help clarify this; his flop c/r% especially would be helpful.

I had missed the part about the dead BB completely LOL, still trying to learn 6 max. That admittedly makes it a lot closer. But even with an extra bb in the pot it is still going to be better to check vs a frequent checkraiser and like you said, it would be nice to have some kind of idea about what villain is likely to do here.

My basic flop strategy is pretty similar to everyone elses. I checkraise when I can, fold when I must, and call everything else. I don't avoid good flop checkraises just to have something to bet the turn with.

After we checkcall the flop we have a terrible turn problem. Our call tells Villain our hand is playable but not very good while we know virtually nothing about his hand. Villain has both a big advantage in information and positional advantage too. No matter how we play the turn we are going to take a beating. There is no way around this.

Nevertheless we have to do something on the turn. The popular approach is to check pretty much automatically. This allows Villain to value bet his good hands and take free cards with his bad hands while bluffing enough to keep you honest. Very painful.

Betting the turn allows Villain to raise all his good hands while just calling or folding with his bad ones. Also very painful. Indiscriminate betting is not a cure all whatsoever.

But in specific situations betting can be much less awful than checking. It depends on your hand, the board texture, and especially your opponent. The technical aspect is that betting creates a one-or-two bet turn at Villain's option, whereas checking makes it a zero-or-one bet turn again at Villain's option.

Sometimes you have a good hand on the turn and betting tends to get an extra bet into the pot. Much more often you have around 50% equity and you don't care very much whether or not an extra bet goes in. That's when the human aspect comes in. Betting the turn creates pressure and many opponents respond very badly:

1. Folding too many hands

2. Waiting for sure thing to value raise

3. Never semibluff raising an unshowable hand.

If your opponent has one or more of these leaks it can be very profitable to bet with the right hand.

The connection to OP's hand is leak #2. If the Button isn't willing to raise the turn without a big hand then you can shred him by 1) semibluffing unshowable draws and 2) betting weak made hands for value/protection.

Of course Villains also make mistakes when you check to them. The most common leaks that should encourage you to check the turn are:

1. Automatically firing a second barrel (bluffing too much).

2. Taking too many free cards with weak made hands (failure to protect his hand + polarized range).

There is also a psychological issue here. Blinds who defend aggressively are less fun to play against than blinds who play passively and let you bash them at will. Blinds who checkraise the flop whenever possible and look for additional opportunities to create trouble on the turn are more annoying than players who restrict their aggression to checkraising the flop. That can translate into a better image and perhaps people will leave your blinds alone a little more.

Thanks for the well written response, SW.

This is indeed a very exploitable play, since your range will be too weak overall. Also, your turn c/r range becomes kind of a non-factor. I guess the trick is to find which turn leak villain may have and play accordingly.