what happens a lot when people first start experimenting with this is that they invariably do it into the nuts and then become risk adverse. the pot is small when you donk but it multiplies quickly in cr pots. this is why so many fish will donk btw. it looks cheap to them.

This, but it's obviously not a terrible strategy for people experimenting to donk instead of check/raising if they are played back at the first time. Mainly because I think there is a lot of over adjusting when people see you c/r fold on the flop. Definetly take advantage by donking a few times because people also assume, hero ALWAYS c/r bluffs and ALWAYS donks for value. I know this is basic balancing but whatever, I thinks it's relevant.

On another topic, I find the majority hardly ever adjust to a c/r turn bluff (mostly if it doesn't go to showdown). My theory is that it's super easy for villains to feel like they are being important taking notes on something they happened to see on the flop. But they're uncomfortable taking notes and adjusting to whatever happens on the turn because they haven't really been watching the hand and can't be bothered loading up the HH to see what actually happened.

What happened to balance, how is donking ace boards against this type of player bad. I didnt say i donk this board 100% time. Obviously check raising and sometimes just check folding is also thrown in.

If you check raise 100% of time, even the dumbest villain is gonna adjust very quickly.

pf 3bet as a bluff: vs people who open wide and call/raise tight, preferably with hands that can't profitably call but that aren't total bull****

pf 3bet for value: any time we are ahead of villain's calling range of our 3bet

call and c/r flop for value: when we have a strong hand that can get called by many worse hands and villain is cbetting a high %

call and c/r as a bluff: when our percieved range contains many strong hands and villain is cbetting a high %. equity and/or an opponent that folds a reasonable ammount are also helpful.

call, c/c flop, lead turn for value: when we have a strong hand that can get called by worse, and turn makes the board go from dry to drawish.

call, c/c flop, lead turn as a bluff: when we have equity, but not great showdown value and can't stand another bet, and the turn makes the board go from dry to drawish.

call and donk for value: when we have a strong hand that can get called by worse, villain is less likely than normal to cbet, and/or check raising is an overplay.

call and donk as a bluff: when we cannot rep a value hand by check/raising, and villain also reps little with a rebluff. also helpful to have some equity and/or value bets in our range.

example for donk betting could be something like a board of KJ4

here we don't rep much with a c/r, and we have some moderate strong value hands as well as some minor equity hands that are hard to c/c with. we can donk with hands like AT, AQ, as well as KQ, KT, and while we may lose a slight ammount in munching cbets with the last two, we more than make up for it by getting some extra wins with the lesser stuff. not a perfect example, but i think you get the idea.

edit: again, just broad generalizations, and villains matter a ton. i.e. you wouldn't be smart to vb donk tp into a guy on the turn that you know double barrels air a ton whether your hand became more vulnerable or not.

Just gave one of these donk bets a go, I got raised. Dont think Ill be trying it again.

My post was about people who are starting to experiment with defending the blinds who become risk adverse after their first c/r not working.

will read tomarow when im sober but this 1000000000000000000000x

too much 3 betting
not enough calling
too much check raising otf
not enough donking otf

first hand example

you are in the big blind with AJ

the button, who is 19/16 with 30% steal and 7/10 fold to 3b opens to 3x.

should you 3bet, call or fold?

you should call. obv we won't fold, because AJ is way ahead of this guy's opening range, so there's no reason for that. we shouldn't 3bet though, because we would be taking a hand that's ahead and putting it behind. even though this guy folds enough that it would be profitable regardless, we should generally avoid that, make profitable calls with this type of hand, and save our bluffing for junkier hands that can't make a profitable call. if this guy's fold to 3b was 2/9, then we would raise for value.

we call and the flop comes T48. villain's cbet% is 76, double barrel 40, afq 35. should we c/f, c/c, c/r, or donk?

we should c/r. villain will usally be cbetting here. most of his range does not hit this board. we have credible good hands in our percieved calling range. we have some equity when called, and our hand is not strong enough to call a bet.

we c/r, villain calls, and the turn is 2, giving us a board of T482. should we follow through to rep a big hand since most of villains really strong hands would have gotten it in on the flop?

no. when you bluff, you should usually be doing it in situations where villain has lots and lots of really poor hands and your bluff targets those hands. without more of a read, you're not trying to get him to fold KT on this board. you're trying to get him to fold random bull****, which he usually will. that might seem a little counter intuitive since our strong ace high already beats a lot of those hands, but that's another big difference between being in position and being out of position. when you're out of position, the value of minor showdown value goes down a lot for the simple reason that its much harder to successfully get a hand like that to showdown as the winnner.

disagree with all of this, would 3b AJo and flat AJs mainly because AJss play better oop without the initiative. check raising this board texture which he will not cbet with his whole range is terrible imo. You will get called way too often to make this profitable and have no clue what he has because villain should be calling his whole value range here.

AJo is easily a profitable call here, and most micro regs with those stats are cbetting this board with near 100% of their range.

why would anyone cbet this board with there entire range, makes no sense because it hits your perceived flatting range pretty hard and it is a board that gets check raised a lot.

Really good post DCI and actually turning into one of the best strat threads ive seen in uNL.

Agree with Wizard on the above post also and some pretty good stuff on donk betting.

Just want to add that for all of you who identify this as a huge leak, the best thing you could do to improve playing oop is go play like 20k hands of HU, itll improve it tremendously along with most other aspects of your game.

Nice read...

because thats what they do. it doesn't really matter though. i mean, in the example, our read is that we think this guy is cbetting here most every time. if that's not our read, or we're playing in games where our default read is different, than it changes the entire situation and we would do something else. the point is that if we do think he's cbetting a ton there, this is how we would react.

how is villains cbet % only 76% if he cbets this board everytime ? In your example you did not give reads, you just he is c betting this board everytime without reasoning as too why he is doing this, flawed example imo.

ok, now you are just trolling. 76% is a pretty high cbet number, and obv villain doesn't have to be near 100 to be betting near 100 here. there are lots of multiway pots and board that are much more of a trainwreck to take out of that number. the fact of the matter is, if you polled most of the unl regs that read this forum, which are somewhat represented by this guy, most of them are betting nearly everything here.

edit: also, none of what they are checking back is pure air anyway

lol at calling me a troll for attempting to help you and the people in this forum out by giving my pov of the situation. Not saying i am right but it is always good when others chime in on strat, but since you 24 table 2nl, you must know better than me.

yes, i was clearly way off about the whole trolling thing. if it makes it better, we can say that the guy cbets 86% and that his handle is ilovecbetting.

First off, a really good initiative to start this thread, IMO pre-flop play its the most important before trying to take value from flop.

The board that I quoted has happened to me a lot of times and I play at a site thats kind of unpopular so players read well without PT & HEM. These kind of flops are good to bet with PP but since both me & my opponent know nobody has the trips at a board like this most of the time, the donk re-raises just keeps coming in. My own view at this is a check or a small raise for the potcontrol and then check/call down to showdown when you have a good read at your opponent. I have shoved a lot of these boards @ micro and got re-raised by A4 type of hands. Of course these opponents pay you of when you flop trips with T6

But as I said you have to gamble against ranges sometimes but then Potraiser is one of the most laggy sites I have played at.

This thread is shaping out to be one of the most +EV threads in recent memory. The c/c -> lead line is one of the least understood yet potent and valuable weapons in poker.

example hand 2

you are in the BB with QT

btn is 26/22, 43% steal, 20% fold to 3b, 45 afq, 70 cbet, 50 db and his avatar is some kind of hentai tentacle rape thing. he opens to 3x. should you call, raise or fold?

you should call. 3betting as a bluff is no good against this guy, because he hardly ever folds to 3bets, and QTs isn't really strong enough that it would be a value bet if we did raise. it is strong enough to see a flop though, but folding isn't terrible if you think this guy plays better than you.

you call and the flop comes 226. should you lead, c/r, c/c, or c/f?

you should c/f. it doesn't really matter that this misses most of villain's range, because it also misses most of yours, you're oop, can't have premiums, and are up against someone that is very stubborn/agressive. this scenario is pretty much the easiest c/f in the world without more information, and trying to make fancy moves here will mostly just be burning money despite the fact that you hold the awesome power of the backdoor flush draw (omg)

Indeed, villain has most of the times a better high-card or pp so there is no much implied odds in this one and even in worst case your flush could be his FH. Maybe lead out 1/4 on this type of board (then fold to raise or C/F turn)

lol @ avatar description ;>

good thread

Solid advice my man.

All u really need to play fairly strong OOP is a solid understanding of board textures, ur opponnent and why u r doing what u r doing.

I play a lot of 25NL and this is the way I approach blind play in general (although obviously u have to mix it up, especially in 6-max where patterns r detected more easily - although admittedly not very easily in general at these stakes).

The basis for my preflop decision is villain's and my own tendencies and the value of my holdings.

By villain's tendencies I mean how widely does he steal in which positions? how often does he call a 3-bet? how often does he 4-bet? and how does he tend to approach specific types of hands on specific types of boards post? (a HUD and some basic notes on how people play their hands post should give u a pretty good idea)

By my own tendencies I mean what types of hands have they seen me flat? what types of hands have they seen me 3-bet? what types of hands have they never seen me play out of the blinds? (again, u r gonna wanna take notes on these things - when u 3-bet someone and it goes to show down, make sure to note how the hand impacted villain's read on u)

This is obviously a lot of info to have to break down every time u wanna play out of the blinds, but after a couple of orbits, u should have a pretty good idea of the table dynamics. At these stakes, however, u should be careful to put too much thought into the meta-game, as a lot of opponnents at these stakes tend not to as well - but u do need to understand how a fold, call, 3-bet will be perceived in general by villain and what hands villain has seen u show down in what situations.

By the value of my holdings I basically mean how much do I want to see a flop with my hand vs villain's opening range from a specific position (BTN, CO, UTG etc.).

This is where the "knowing why u r doing what u r doing" comes into play.

Obviously, we know that we r raising AQ+, 1010+ for value, b/c these hands will be ahead of his range enough of the time to make it profitable to 3-bet these hands OOP.

But what about A10 or KJ ish hands? One of the biggest problems I see is that people will 3-bet these hands on the assumption that these hands r most likely ahead of villain's range, which makes the raise a value raise. The problem is that this value raise wont be called by worse enough of the time to make it profitable and the times they do get called, we r left playing a big pot OOP with a marginal hand and not a lot of added info.

Hands like A10 and KJ have a lot of value against most villain's steal opening range, but really not enough to 3-bet, so why not just call and most likely be ahead of villain's range without having to give away any info or play a big pot OOP?

The same holds true for hands like 109s, 10Js or small PPs - these hands have a lot of value post, so there is no need to add value to them by 3-betting pre and maybe having to lay down to a 4-bet.

This is not to say that u should flat every SC or broadway hand OOP (mixing is the key ingredient in NLHE), but merely to say that these r hands that dont need the added value that comes with a 3-bet.

Depending on my read obv, I would be much more inclined to 3-bet hands like 75o or even Q5s b/c these r hands that I have no problem throwing away to a 4-bet, but at the same time hands that in themselves dont have a lot of value, and therefore by 3-betting I add value to hands that otherwise didnt have a lot (by 3-betting u can take it down pre, by c-betting post or by hitting ur hand).

This "quick reply" became awfully long, but my point is that 3-betting OOP is very situational and u have to understand why u r doing what u r doing - if u r 3-betting u need to know if u r doing it for value, to add value to a hand or if it is even neccesary to add value to the hand by 3-betting it?

Flatting OOP is only a bad play if u dont know why u r doing it - and the same holds true for 3-betting.