$1-3 NL. Effective stacks $300. Villain is maybe 50s white guy. Plays too many hands, but doesn’t get stupid with them. Defends BB liberally but is rather fit or fold.

Folded to hero in CO. Raises to $9 with KsJs. BB calls.

FLOP ($19) Kh7cQh
Villain leads for $12. Hero calls.

TURN ($43) 7s
Villain checks. Hero bets $25. My thinking is he either led the flop with a flush draw or weaker king. He checked so I will charge him/get value.

River ($93) 2h
Villain leads for $50. Hero?????

I don’t know how to post spoiler box, so I’ll reveal my action and his hand later.

have to call really but wouldn't be very happy about it

Based on your description of villain, just fold river. It's not worth trying to be the 1st guy to catch this villain bluffing.

easy fold, you don´t beat valuebets and that line is a bluff close to 0%. You even block JT or stupidly played QJ and you don´t block any hearts.

He might not believe us since we just called flop, but jamming is actually pretty nice in this spot

I would raise the flop and bet the turn.

AP river is a clear fold.

I'd want a little more info on Villain. Typical players will check/raise 2pair+ on the flop, and they would check/call a FD. The donk line doesn't' fit anything except weaker Kx I need a little more convincing before I'm giving V a nutted range on the river here.

I think either way though I'm probably folding here. We don't actually beat anything. Only our K plays, so we just chop with any K-rag that V might have.

However, this result highlights the need for a raise on the flop, followed by another bet on the turn.

Def a spot where 'live' will have a few influences and 'all' actions have some merit to them.

PF ... Defends and is fit/fold? I'm increasing my PF opening amount for this guy's BB. Not that you will 'ever' see me open for $9 at 1/3 anyway.

Flop ... Not really raising here too much but we are deep enough to consider it. You don't talk about his Donking or betting habits so that unavailable. And notice there's an even less reason to raise here if you had just bet more PF!

Turn ... AP I would tend to bet bigger as it may save us chips by allowing a fold to a c/r or if V Donks again on River. I actually don't mind offering the drawing price but I just want more in the pot when I do offer a decent price. Facing a c/r is no fun here .. you did notice that your kicker improved to the Q? We are only behind AK/KQ/K7 now and chopping with the rest of the Kx family. Not sure why folks consider a Jack weak anyway.

River ... Pretty easy fold in most cases, but AP it's almost economical to call. He knows you have a King and is a 'fit' Player who has Donked twice into a PF raiser. I wouldn't be surprised by K7 that really wants you to have a flush here!

Your only saving grace is that if he reads you as the folding type now that the Board is paired and flushed and has taken in how passive you have played the hand. That's the 'live' part of this hand that can have influence as well as the behavior and timing tells that go along with a fit/fold Player. GL

+1 easy flop raise and big turn bet

I like our small raise attempting to thin the field in position while still giving us a good very workable SPR of ~15 (and even if it goes 3ways we still have a quite workable SPR of ~11). I used to think going like $15+ was much better here but now think even open limping might be better than that.

Thanks to our SPR we have a bunch of room to hopefully figure out what is going on before making major decisions for lots of chips. So I also just call the flop donk in position and go from there.

I like our turn bet. We're chopping with most Kx's but we are charging draws. I also like our bet size because I think we can mostly fold if the draws come in on the river.

I probably mostly fold to the river bet. Nothing in the read says he is a bluffer and we do block stuff like JT that could be bluffing. We're basically calling for a chop at best most times, which is a meh reason to call.

Gtoughfold,butifwediditthennicehand,imoG

Allow me to address some of the points that have been made so far so you guys have a better idea of what I was thinking.

The $9 preflop raise. I tend to be consistent with my open raises in that they are larger in early position as I have more donkeys to get through and smaller as my position improves and I’m first in as I don’t have as many players to get through. If this is theoretically bad, I’m open to making adjustments.

Why did I not raise the flop? A few reasons. This game tends to see people do weird stuff like call with hands like AA, KK, AK, etc preflop, regardless of position, number of players, etc then become active on the flop. Most importantly here, however, was the fact that I had not seen the villain donk a flop and wasn’t sure if theat meant he hit a flush draw, two pai, set, etc. So I decided to take a lower variance line. Again, I’m f this is wrong, I appreciate the feedback.

Call or raise are both fine otf. Maybe a little more toward raise when you have no heart and a little more toward call when you have a heart. You do want to have some good hands when you flat a flop bet though.

Overall, I think this was WP provided you folded the river. Chopping with all his idiotically played KX hands hurts your equity significantly.

Poker is about value and maximizing your value when the situation arises, which is probably a lot less often than we think!

When I play 1/2 I open for 7, 11 and 16 but none of these is position or holding specific. As my stack grows I will drop the 7 and stick to 11 and 16 for the most part. For 1/3 it will be 11, 16 and 22. At some tables I will abandon ship and just go with whatever the table is allowing ... which could be as high as 21-27 at some of my tables. In a lot of cases what I'm actually doing is setting a price against the Button and Blinds .. or any other Player that I'm trying to bait into the hand.

If the Blinds are Nits and will only call with stronger holdings, then why build a pot for them? Open for 7 and see what happens. Music to my ears is when a Player says 'I had a $X hand, not a $X hand' because I can instantly range them for that raise size going forward ... which is something you rarely get when you always open for $Y.

You and I understand the nature of being consistent. The issue with this is that most of the players at the table wont notice (or care), thus limiting it's affect on what you're trying to accomplish ... which is try to hid the strength of your holding.

When you have a decent holding and a 'customer' in the BB (sticky defender) then you should be trying to get extra value on all streets. If BB folds or other Players get in the way then you reconsider that action. You also have a fit/fold included in your BB. This is awesome since you will need to worry less during the rest of the hand. But what if he folds the Flop? You get no more value for your position raise on his BB. And then there's the obvious math involved with bigger bet sizing ... the next bets are even bigger so you get more value from the wider defending range that folds a lot. GL

nvm...misread suit of last card...

I folded the river because Ed Miller says a large bet on the turn or river indicates strength. Villain showed Kd7d for a turned boat.

I like every street.

Gwellplayed,imoG

Large bet? V bet 53% of pot, which is 5% less than you bet on the Turn. What bet size would you have called, if any, or considered 'not large'?

I respect Ed's body of work, but look at the flow of the hand and the description of the Player you have given us. Any bet on the River should scream value, especially with the Turn check and flush coming in.

It really just comes down to bluff catching here .. And I don't think this Player is bluffing more than 25% of the time, nor would I consider this a 'blocking' bet for a Kx chop very often enough to consider calling $50 to win roughly $50 in a chopped pot. GL

You’re right. It’s not the fact that the bet is significantly large, it’s th fact that donkeys at this level rarely bet for thin value. They check. So, such a bet screams value.