Haven't played in months, but my home game is now playing online (I assume it should be here, not home game section?)...1/2 blinds, 100 buyin...game can be passive to crazy depending on participants.

9 handed, effective stacks 100.

I'm dealt 9h10h on button...a couple of limps (standard), I raise to $6, get three callers. Probably could have raised more, like 5x, buy am not used to playing online since Black Friday!

Flop 4 8 J, rainbow.

BB,villian, bets out 20. First off, why do I never see this "donk" betting on TV? They always check to the raiser. In any case, I know he has a Jack with a decent kicker (QKA)...I also know he won't fold to a shove.

But I'm bored, sitting at home, haven't played in 7 months, and don't feel like folding.

Turn: 10. I know have a pair as well. However, a 9 on river might now give him a straight if he has JQ.

Villian bets 30...I have about 40-50 behind.

Do I just give up?

In this specific circumstance we probably misplayed pre flop with such a small raise and now we have a huge portion of our stack committed with little wiggle room left and only have a marginal draw.


More generally applicable:
You've given him a range of just a few small hands.

That range is [QJ, KJ, AJ]. Against each of those hands you should be able to count your outs to make a winner (you have 13 against AJ for example).
If "# of winners / total possible cards on the river" is greater than "money you invest / money you could win" then you can probably call or raise. If its smaller you should generally fold.

This game used to be a regular game at someone's house (no rake, social)...and oddly enough, preflop raises were much higher (opening for 10x bb not unusual), but online people seem to have gotten more reasonable...maybe because the slider has presets for 2x,3x and 5x.

However, raising to 10-12 would have gotten the same amount of callers preflop (2)...people don't play in this game to fold!

Stacks are shallow. If raising isn't going to get anyone to fold, and they never fold top pair postflop, then don't raise suited connectors. (Raise hands that make top pair or overpairs a lot.) In this hand, just limp along in position and stack someone when you bingo.

Just limp preflop.

They donk because this is the learned way of compensating for their terrible preflop play of playing loose passive OOP. You’re right, it’s probably a marginal made hand.

You could possibly fold flop. And that’s the issue with the pot sweeten raise.

Turn is also close enough to where peeling and folding isn’t a big deal.

But yeah, don’t raise limpers with hands like this on short stacks. And if you’re going to raise, at least make it a price that may get folds.


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I'm so card dead recently (one reason I quit playing) that 9-10 suited looks like a monster!

Normally I would limp with this type of hand.

Well don’t open limp.

However, once you see this kind of action, you can go ahead and overlimp, and try to connect with a board like this.

If you’re deep, you can raise, as raising has the benefit of facing the guys in position with a more expensive price to play, so you can buy position. And of course invest a little bit now to maximize your Chance of stacking someone (this is a common tactic in live PLO8, where you raise a speculative hand small preflop in order to get all in by the river if you like the runout).

This shallow, though, just limp along. Keep SPR deep. That’s how you can maximize your street poker potential postflop, and gives you a better risk/reward ratio.


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It's a very passive preflop game...frequently 6-8 players will see flop for BB...at least raising gets it down to 2-4 opponents, and it only costs me $4 (I was going to call the $2 regardless).

Part of the problem with playing low stakes is sometimes I don't care about the money or think about the numbers like SPR.

Well the caliber of hand you have to make to win the pot is going to be similar 4 handed v 8 handed. Especially with a hand like this. Your top pairs will be vulnerable multi-way. You really need 2 pair on an uncoordinated board at a minimum to feel good about putting $ in the pot. So you might as well let them all in.

If you really want to trim the # of players, the raise has to be bigger than this.


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You are correct, sir!

Sitting in my home office at night in the dark, playing online poker (first time since Black Friday!), and not having played in months is not a recipe for critical thinking

Hey if you thought you played it perfect, you wouldn’t ask for feedback. Often times the difficult spots happen because of decisions made on earlier streets too, as this hand shows.


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The turn is whatever and doesn't really matter. The raise preflop is really the only thing worth talking about in this hand.