0.10/0.20 € friendly home game six handed, often straddled. Running for about one hour, several people already on second or third buyin.

Villain is in general fun to play against because he will call two streets with 2nd pair, but fold to the second barrel if he doesn't connect at all (and telegraphs it if he's ready to fold to my turn bet). Of course he limps a lot and likes to donkbet on the flop. Does open raise premiums though, probably at least TT+, AK, AQ. Betsizing not terrible, usually something between half and twothirds of the pot. White german guy in his 40s. Does not play on the internet. CO, around 33 €, on his second buy in for 20.

Hero is about the same age, confident, tightest player but not seen as nitty. Button, covers, on first buyin.

No straddle, folds to V who open limps,
hero makes a table standard raise to 1.50 with A5o (in order to isolate Villain. Plan is to cbet nearly all flops and go from there.)

Blinds fold, V calls.

Flop comes 855r (3.30)

Villain donks for 3.00.

Can we fold here?

No, no we can't fold here! Is there a typo in your OP? As written you flop trips top kicker and ask if you can fold to a single bet????


Assuming no typo:

You say this guy likes to donk flops so I assume he frequently donks flops. Therefore he isn't only donking flops with boats+ so you are ahead here the majority of the time vs 99, 8X, weaker trips and random bluffs.

Thanks Ragequit99. No typo here, just a question. He bets pot and therefore I suspect his range is heavily weighted to the few combos of 88, 85 but of course there are some smaller pocket pairs also. Question is, how many.

But if you're opposed to folding, which is understood, would you raise or call?

Thanks Ragequit99. No typo here, just a question. He bets pot and therefore I suspect his range is heavily weighted to the few combos of 88, 85 but of course there are some smaller pocket pairs also. Question is, how many.

But if you're opposed to folding, which is understood, would you raise or call?

It really depends on V tendencies when he donks. If he takes the lead and then keeps betting relatively large compared to pot you could just call and let him barrel at you. Let's work through pot size and stacks and see what happens:

Flop pot is 3, he bets 3 you call.

Pot on turn is 9, effective stacks are 28.50. V bets 6, you call.

River pot is 21, effective stacks are 22.50. V bets any amount you can raise him allin without an enormous overbet so it looks like calling to river allows you to get stacks in anyway.

The calling route keeps V range widest, disguises your hand strength for longest and letting him keep the betting lead will give you more useable information on his hand strength.

I say useable because raising flop would give you more information but a reasonable sized raise is going to be fairly committing and although you'll know his range is strong after his call you won't realistically be pot controlling or folding on the basis of that information. Likewise if he folds to your flop raise you learn his hand was weak but it's too late to do anything about it whereas if he checks turn you can still elect to bet a reasonable amount and expect a call from weak hands. Bet is less scary than raise.


Let's look at the raising route:

Flop you raise to 9 and V calls.

Turn pot is 21, effective stacks are 22.5 so your next bet is effectively allin since you have only 10 left in a 40 pot if you bet half pot. I.e. Never checking back or folding river. His flop call shows he is strong so just shove the turn I think and expect to be good more often than not when called.


If you click back the flop and he calls your minraise:

Turn pot is 15, effective stacks are 25.5. 2/3 pot bet of 10 leaves 15 behind going to river in a pot of 35. That's an easy callable allin on the river. I like this line if villain understands pot odds and will interpret minraise as weak (like you are annoyed at his donk so click it back with AK thinking he is bluffing). If he interprets minraise as strong I prefer bigger raise or call.


V range contains 3 combos of 88 and 3 combos of 85. Majority of the rest is miles behind you and in a home game where he is l/c wide and frequently donking flops he can likely have 75 65 54 53 (12 combos) K5s Q5s J5s T5s (4 combos) A8 K8 Q8 J8 T8 98 87 86 (up to 96 combos) 77 66 99 TT (up to 24 combos) and bluffs with 76 or overs.

Majority of his range may struggle to call a raise if he were tight postflop but given his propensity to call second pair I think you can minraise flop or turn and expect to get called. Fact he gives up after turn with second pair I think I'm leaning towards trying to gii on the turn following a flop raise to 9. However, if you think this scares off all his 1-pair hands then I think you should call and let him bet the turn to see if you can read him for a stronger hand.

If he pots the turn then I think you can raise him allin there and then or wait till he bets river and then raise him allin. If he backs off on the turn I'd put in a small raise or bet close to pot if he checks. At least give him the opportunity to make a big calling error with 1-pair.

Folding shouldn't even cross your mind here. The only thing on your mind should be the best way to win as much money as possible. The flop is really dry and villain is donking into us.

Are his donks usually steals or weak made hands?

If he steals a lot I would call and let him barrel the turn.

If a lot of weaker made hands are in his range I would raise to $60 right now as he is a bit of a calling station and the board can (almost) only get worse for him.

We shouldn't care much about stronger hands because both options allow us to stack weaker trips and we're always getting stacked by a boat.

If you're contemplating folding this spot, then maybe you should play for smaller stakes.

Try suggesting a $0.02/$0.05 game. Buy in for $2, and play a solid short stack strategy.

^ lol

You jest but my friends won't play for more than .05/.1 and then they won't rebuy. We end up playing .02/0.5 or even 0.01/0.02 just so they can buy in multiple times from £10. These are guys who all earn £50K+ a year BTW. They'll spend a fortune on all sorts of pointless things (anything other than food and booze IMO) but feel bad gambling with more than small change. Shame, they're all terrible poker players

I can't see folding this on any street in a typical low stakes crowd. I'd expect to see mostly 8x, some 99-JJ at a passive type table, maybe a few 67's (although people usually don't pot bet straight draws), at best a worse 5. I would just never expect to see 88 or 85 here, unless you had some kind of history with this guy. People just never donk pot bet a full house of any kind in my experience, especially not with trashy cards like 85.

I'd probably call to try to string him along, but expect him to slow down if an over card comes and maybe not continue with his 8x. A raise here isn't wrong, I'd expect a lot of folds, but you'd probably be more likely to get his whole stack if he has a worse 5. It might even be one of those rare times I show if he folds to my raise, you know, just to show the table that I only raise flops with really good hands.

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts. I understand that I leave a lot of value on the table here by folding, and that I should in general focus on how to get stacks in here. What really confused me was the betsize, because usually he bets like 50 - 67 % pot. But downunder nailed it IMO: Why would he bet so much with the nuts. Some hand like an underpair or 99, or 8x type hands are much more likely (hopefully he does not limp/call with TT pre but I cannot exclude it entirely). Betting to end the hand.

I must admit I folded this time but I won a few smaller pots from this guy before and afterwards.

Oh and moving down in stakes is out of the question. While most of the guys are more in the 25k/year league, they would strictly refuse to play for smaller stakes. They also insist on allowing multiple straddles (UTG for .40, UTG+1 for .80, UTG +2 for 1.60 ...)

So all in all I am pretty happy with the playerpool.

Edit: Typo

Grunch: lol @ folding. You have flopped the world, what do you need here to continue, quads? You said this guy auto-donks so I think this is a good time to flat in position and let him barrel if he wants. Play for stacks.

His value range is probably every suited 5, 88 and garbage like 65o/54o, we have him crushed.

All that said, I probably fold pre because if he limps a lot, he has most A6+ in his range and I like to give fish kicker lessons as opposed to take them.

Why would 88 bet pot?

Asking me? I'm not 100% excluding the nuts from his range, because people will sometimes play counter-intuitively. What I am saying is, any reasonable assessment of villain's range means we have him crushed and that we can't play this sort of hand preflop and then fold when we hit our miracle flop.