I raise 8s in Early position, tight lady three bets cutoff, fish calls Button, another fish calls big blind, I call.

Flop is 245r

I donk, all call.

Turn is A.

I check, lady bets, fishes call, I fold.

This is a spot I find myself in frequently. I usually c/r flop but I've led before. I don't see how your hand could be good so I like a fold but truthfully, I'd have to do some math on their ranges to better understand if it's worth continuing. On the flop, does donking accomplish what we want? If tight lady raises, we are probably best. If she calls like she did, then the fishes will call almost any 2. If we choose to check raise and it gets checked through and the A hits the turn, I feel we can safely fold and save a flop bet.


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nh

I had nearly the exact same situation and exact same flop this past weekend where I had opened 99, a loose player (but with a tight 3 bet range) proceeds to do so, a totally drawing dead player calls late position and a blind who can't fold his KTo/QJo/66 type hands for any # of bets called as well.

The flop in this hand was 432 and I opted to check.

I'm not sure if this is the correct play as the other two players in the hand should very rarely have me beat (would require a wheel or a set, really), so I'm only worried about the 3 bettor. Unfortunately, the 3 bettor has a strong range, and when he's behind, he has 10 full outs. When I'm behind, I have 2. IOW, the playability of this hand is abysmal.

So let's be even optimistic and say this guy can show up w/ AJs, AQo, 88. I think he just flats KQs.

So while sure, these are the kind of players who will let me know that i'm behind, and can play perfectly against if I show aggression and still face resistance, my equity and playability are mediocre and poor, respectively. I estimate that I've around 23% equity 4 way, and getting aggressive also may result in getting myself isolated against the stronger hand and losing some calling overlay. While contradictory to my previous statement, I do run the risk of being bluffed off my hand as well by check raising (as preflop 3 bettor could 3 bet / bet turn with an AQ type hand unexpectedly, or make a bad value 3 bet with 88).

Basically, 642 is hugely different from 542 here, because our equity and playability are both much better without the existence of the wheel gutter.

This all being said, check raise seems superior to donking, if we think we have value, as 3 bettor should be betting this board nearly 100%. Might as well get the wide ranges to call 2 bets instead of 1.

Not trying to nit pick but I think this can be a flawed way of thinking about poker. You never "save a bet". Each dollar put into the pot has equity (hopefully). No such thing as a saved bet.

You're either way behind or slightly ahead. This isn't a spot to jam with a cr.
b/c > c/c > cr/c

Your equity will change drastically on the tun. Classic case of put little $ on flop, evaluate the turn, continue when our equity jumps with those good turns.

I can imagine some spots where I b/c flop and then donk the turn.

Ahh that makes a lot of sense. Could you describe a spot where you donk turn? Maybe a 7?


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On the flop, the question is how likely the 3 bettor is to c-bet. Seems highly likely. If unlikely, a x/r strategy risks going wrong and turning into a free card. If likely, a x/r strategy makes all other players decide to call at about 7:1 instead of 13:1. At 13:1, the donk bet gives everyone a great opportunity to call and do so correctly. At 7:1, players with two over cards are probably making a mistake calling. Odds are high that at least 1 and probably 2 if not all 3 of your 3 villains are holding overcards rather than pocket pairs. If any of them 3 bets your x/r, you have an easy fold. So..... x/r > b/c.

I also question the wisdom of open betting 88 from EP as this hand demonstrates. Open limping would have kept the pot smaller. You can better evaluate whether to stay in the hand if it is raised pre. You can likely play the hand for bigger profit or smaller loss after you see the flop.

Sometimes you are totally drawing dead. The times you only win if you spike a set on the end, you have less than 5% equity. I think it's fine to round the 95 up to 100 and say you saved a bet.

You really want to check raise into five potential overcards, a gutter, and maybe an overpair? I was debating c/c

I personally think x/c > x/r > b/c, which sounds backwards but I think if our hand is worth a donk against the PFR on this board, then it's worth a x/r. But I don't think it's worth a x/r.

fwiw, I agree with you after thinking about this have for a while

I like check on the flop and depending on the action I call or raise the flop.

Has played yes easy fold turn

Is donking that much better?

Maybe you should talk through your thinking for the flop donk.

Putting three bets in drawing to two outs is bad.

I didn't play hand but another very good player did. I prefer a check call, but he says he gets to find out where he is for one bet in a large pot instead of checking and guessing.

I probably prefer x/c, x/f but I don't think this is poorly played.

really ?
So he donk everyone call and a 9 hit the turn.
whats should he do next since the guessing should be over, right ?

Right. But getting two bets in when your opponent is drawing to 6 outs is good.

Was the flop plan to donk-fold? The reason presented is the reason not to check-raise (assuming that 3-bettor bets and not someone else), but it doesn't argue why donking is best.

I'm not saying that either leading or checking is obviously the best play. But the reasoning presented is weak at best.

Maybe we should start with asking what tight villain's 3-bet range looks like.

He thought she might raise Ak enough to call on the flop and c/f the turn

These are the types of very specific assumptions that I think you should be aware of and wary of when it comes to hand analysis.

One reason is that your friend may be right, but we literally have no way of reaching the same conclusion against a generic opponent (even if we label that person as "tight").

Another reason is that it leads to extremely exploitative plays that work when they work, but don't work otherwise. I know that's tautological, but it's basically saying that you have to be right on your assumptions, otherwise you end up losing quite big.

It would be helpful for you and your friend to work together on developing a decision-tree for your opponent. (Keep the pot size the same as in the hand. In other words, assume that your opponents are all dead money. It's not an accurate assumption, but it's good enough.)

On the flop, pick some hand ranges that
* Bet-calls when checked to
* Bet-3! when checked to
* Calls when bet into
* Raises when bet into
(I'm assuming you never bet/3-bet villain here.)

Calculate your equity based on these assumptions. Now move some hands around and look at the equity again. What are the key assumptions in this hand that push things towards leading or towards check-calling or check-raising?

After working through that, if you're ambitious you can try adding in the turn action. The ace falling is the absolute worst for you regardless of how you played the flop (unless KQ is there *AND* she bets it, there's just no way for you to win given a narrow 3-betting range). So pick a different card. Suppose that a T falls. What do you do now? (Notice that what you do probably depends on what you did on the flop.)

I wouldn't say that leading is necessarily bad, but I think that Ax bets often enough to make check-raising (assuming 3-bettor continues the lead) is probably better than betting (especially bet-calling). I think things have to be pretty much perfectly aligned for bet-call, check-fold to be right.

Hand is played standard GTO IMO. Flop donk is smart/fine. I can see the flop getting checked through a fair amount which is not ideal, and I can also see PFR with AK/AQ/AJs auto raising your flop bet on this wheel texture often enough that I'm ok with donking the flop here and considering calling down a raise depending on the run-out.

The times you're raised by AK/AQ, you might make JT or QJ fold for 2 bets when they would (correctly?) call 1 with possible 6 outs. Might induce additional calls of 2 bets from hands behind PFR's possible AK/AQ, like any hand with an ace considers calling 2 bets here. So the pot is now padded by someone overpaying to draw to 3 outs. This benefits you and the AK player.

And of course again preventing the flop from checking through and increasing your chances of winning on turn cards like J, T, 9 etc. Some villains might actually donk check the flop even though they'd raise your donk, even though that seems contradictory.

I don't like flop lead, it should never check through, even a tight player should cb aq/ak on this texture

Anyone who makes this claim regarding a multiway flop probably probably doesn't know much about GTO. Nobody has any clue what multiway GTO looks like.

While this is true, there are some things we can say about gto poker in this spot:

If everyone plays perfect, ev maximizing poker that maximally exploits the best possible counter strategies, outside of cheating, then by definition everyone's ev will equal zero before rake, yet everyone will be taking the line with the highest ev 100% of the time. If two or more lines happen to have the same ev* then a mixed strategy will be seen with the hand, or hands that earn the same fraction of the pot in the long run no matter which action the player chooses at such a decision point.

* I believe this is unlikely to happen in multiway pots. Since equity is quantized by the possibility of improving to a better hand or regressing to a worse hand, it's likely that we can do very well by estimating the best response to the best counter strategy and taking that action 100% of the time. Then from there we may recognize the marginal hands and any potential exploits.

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Besides that, I think samdash's post could be interpreted as saying "I think the op played the hand as best he could given all the available information." which would fit fine given all the above mumbo jumbo.

"sometimes" you are not drawing dead and have the best hand. Those times raise our overall equity otf. Not sure why you are only giving hero 5% equity otf