MP is 70/11, calls the flop often only to fold the turn.

123 hands on CO, taggish stats that are on the weak side postflop. Strange mixture of overly passive and aggressive play. E.g.

PFR/call ATo in a BvB, c/c ATx, c/c K turn, donk A river.

PFR/call KJs, call KQ9, raise/cap the turn on a 3-flush board without a flush draw versus a bad passive player, call a donk bet on a 4-flush river.

Versus me: PFR/call AKo, c/c T866 flop and turn, donk 3 river (possibly a well-played hand).


[converted_hand][hand_history]Poker Stars, $1/$2 Limit Hold'em Cash, 5 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #13538472

Preflop: Hero is BTN with K J
MP calls, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, 2 folds, MP calls, CO calls

Flop: (10.5 SB) 6 4 J (3 players)
MP checks, CO bets, Hero raises, MP calls, CO calls

Flop raise ok? No idea why CO would donk here with a good hand.

Turn: (8.3 BB) A (3 players)
MP checks, CO bets, Hero?

Weird play - I'm having a hard time putting him on a range as a result of the flop donk. I'd be very surprised if he had AJ as I would have expected him to c-r the flop. A6 and A4 are possibilities. Perhaps he's turning a worse J or pocket pair into a bluff but I think he's a little on the passive side postflop. Calldown or call and fold?

Looks like he doesn't think much of your skillz, which would push you to a calldown. That said, the ace is probably the worst card in the deck for you, not because of CO but because of MP. I think you might safely fold right now.

Weird. Not sure what to put villain on either. This guy either kinda sucks or is really good at playing outside of the box.

The first hand you described kinda makes sense (from sort of bad player stand-point): floating flop to c/r turn, but gets mubsy on turn cause now losing to TT, KK, AA, AK, and QJ; then donks river 'cause now only loses to AK and AA not possible (or maybe because not board-reading any further than I haz full houzes!).

The second hand makes it look like MUBS is not within his capacity, and he's actually a bit of a spaz.


However, hand in question differs in that is 3way, not HU. I would think he'd be less inclined to get frisky, so you need to be more cautious (especially because MP could have something, too). And Boz is right that that is the worst card in deck for you.
Given size of pot I probably call turn, fold river UI (just call a K river, probably raise a river J).

Villain is not as good as we think and has exactly AJ. That being said I look him up because pot is big and I could be wrong etc etc.

I'm learning that I really should just fold to this donk on the turn.

Preflop is fine. On the flop, I like your raise: there is a passenger to squeeze out, so we don't need to worry about merging our peeling and value ranges for balance.

Game culture may be different on Stars, but on Merge I am seeing a lot of donkbetting that seems to be an almost-correct adjustment for many pf aggressors' low c-bet percentages. This flop is fairly dry for a reasonable raiser's range, so it is highly likely that the villain is value-betting a J. And with the ace hitting, a scare card that MUBSy ustakes players will often check behind, the villain needs to redonk to get value, presumably because they have an A to go with their J.

Definitely call the turn donk, and fold on the river unimproved.

The second part of this doesn't follow the first, ducy? (Hint: if CO has AJ how many outs does Hero have?)

MP turned a ham sandwich more often than not.

I think you give up too much to fold the turn. You're getting 5:1 to show down vs only CO and I think your hand rates to have better than 16-18% equity vs a odd (possibly bad) post-flop player - especially if there are Jacks in CO's hand range.

True, but that doesn't help us. The read is that he calls flops and folds turns, which means we're not going to get any padding from the bottom end of his range. otoh, there are a lot of aces at the top end of his range that he won't fold that we're in trouble to. Lose-lose for Hero, ergo the worst card in the deck.

It seems extremely optimistic to think that neither of them is holding an ace, and if either of them has an ace we've got somewhere between 0-10% equity. We also really need more than break-even equity to make the call, given that if MP pops it behind us and CO calls we would be getting enough to see one card drawing to 4-ish outs.

I just don't think it's as dire as you make it out to be.

Right, the read is that MP peels flops and folds turns but MP plays 70/11. Knowing nothing about MPs showdown stats, I'd still think that there's a lot of hands in a 70-40% VPIP (if positional aware - 70%lolwat - EP/MP VPIP could be less than 70%?) that could peel only to fold the turn U/I. What 11% PFR equates to, I'm not sure - top 11% or AA-QQ + some weird hands, etc.

Up to our turn action, all we know is that MP peeled and checked the turn. This doesn't mean Ace and only Ace. It could be but even if you leave Aces in with the rest of hands, MP can't be in very good shape.

If CO had only hands that beat/tie us, then I would fold. However, the read on CO makes me think that CO's play is erratic and I don't get the impression that CO plays/gets value well.

I'm never one to think my poker POV should be treated as gospel. I was a showdown monkey back when I played and I'd still showdown in this situation based on how the action is going.

This is the part that I'm worried about wrt CO. The three hands that OP actually gave us notes on don't necessarily seem that erratic to me. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the ATo hand, especially HU; the TP3K hand is pretty bad, I guess; and even OP admits that the last hand might have been a good play.

Overall, I just really hate being sandwiched, and if we put a bet in I think we're committing to showdown for 3.