Live 20/40 game that has moved from fantastic to just good. A young Asian player that I don't know much about opens the low-jack. He is not overtly ******ed. The high-jack and cutoff fold, but the two worst players at the table cold call from the button and small blind (my seat selection is as usual top-notch). They are loose, passive, and in general bad. They peel flops with almost nothing, cold-call preflop way too much, and also miss obvious value bets. I find Q T and call from the big blind.

4 players, 8 small bets

Q 3 4

Small blind checks. To donk or not to donk. That is the question.....

Unless pf-raiser is so weak to check anything but top pair, I would c/r.

Ideally you'd like to bet and have lojack raise, but this seems pretty unlikely with the Q as the top card, so c/r for value with the likely best hand.

So I guess a follow up...if I bet and low-jack raises, am I 3-betting? The two lines I considered at the time where:

1. Check/raise him and take the lead. If he 3-bets, just call him down, perhaps donking safe rivers.

2. Donk into him, hoping he raises. If the others clear out, just call, then donk most turns.

Bet/3-bet felt like too much action at the time....not sure if that makes sense though.

How would you play 333 here Jesse?

I like second line much better. Keep the pressure on but don't go off for too many bets.

If I bet, I'm not sure how awesome I'd feel if the PFR raised. This is a totally dry board, as dry as it gets. What PFR hands would raise a flop donker that still lose to QT? I mean if I had 99-JJ here and someone donked into me, I would probably just call and re-evaluate on the turn. With no draws out there, there isn't much of an upside to raising pairs worse than a Q. And I'd never raise AK, since a Qxx flop is the worst flop ever for AK.

I'd probably checkraise the field and play very cautiously if PFR 3-bet. Might be able to find a fold on the turn depending on reads. If I c/r and he just called, I'd bet every street for value from then on.

I'd check/raise it to trap the other two guys in the pot for one bet since they'd be drawing dead. Here they are most definitely not and I wouldn't mind folding them out of what will by then be a 10+ small bet pot.

I wouldn't feel awesome. Obviously the best result is you bet, everyone folds or you bet and some people call and then fold the turn. But having the preflop raiser raise is not a bad result in a medium-large pot if he is capable of doing this with AK/pocket pair some % of the time.

HOWEVER, and this is the key point, I find it really unlikely in this particular hand/board that the preflop raiser in is going to raise with something you have beat, so I think the better play is to c/r for value because you should be ahead of his range here.

BTW, this line is assuming bad players are going to peel with like A6, any backdoor flush draws, KJ, etc.

Why is Qxx different than other boards you might raise with AK overcards? Because there is no draw you could potentially be ahead of?

Now that is just crazy talk...

If you always c/r here with sets, then your donk is exploitable.

Because you're reverse dominated more often (two of the most common cold-calling hands, AQ and KQ, both of which you had crushed PF, are now crushing you) and the Q just hits a lot of cold-calling ranges.

Ok, then donk.

donk wtf? no way, this flop gets c-bet like 10000% of the time... go for the c/r and make these chumps pay.

also, your opponents dont give a **** what you do with sets here

this

also lol @ not being "exploitable" having any importance in this spot. does hoss tbf play 20/40 now?

I like the c/r line.

Should have checked 'em and raised 'em I think, but I went with the donk plan. Low Jack raised, both fish folded (and yes, they'd have peeled stuff like A6 and KJ and probably much worse for a single bet) and I called. Also, lol along with Kit at not being exploitable mattering here. It simply doesn't in this game.

Turn brick. I check, he checks. River 9. I bet, he raises, I fold?

this is why I pretty much always c/c to induce when people make a free card looking play on me when i'm oop. because this pretty much sucks now. I can't see calling unless you've got some kind of previous info on him getting out of line with bluff raising rivers in not very big pots. which is pretty rare.

Two times yesterday in my game I bet in a spot like this and got called by naked AK. It's as if they are saying "well, he knows I have AK and he bet, so I better call cause he's probably bluffing cause he knows what I have". It's truly incredible.

All these problems go away if I check/raise the flop.

You have terrible position. C/R is preferred