I know a lot of you on this forum have been advocating just flatting donkbets with overpairs, infact I've been doing that myself too and end up winning most of such pots, but I feel we're losing value in these spots.

Example: 1/3

1 limp, Hero (300) raises 20 UTG1 with KK, BB (300) calls, limper folds

Flop (44): Js 9s 4c
V bets 20, Hero calls

Turn (84): 3d
V bets 30, Hero calls

River (144): Qh
V checks, Hero bets 55, V folds AKss face up

On a wet board like that with a bet less than 2/3 pot, I am raising a large overpair about 100% of the time. If somehow I didn't, I'm raising that weak ass blocker bet on the turn approx 157% of the time.

So if he donked $30, you'd just flat flop?

I think part of the reason we flat overpairs to donk bets is that some of them are unbalanced towards bet/folding. It's a disaster if he folds Jx here when he would very likely continue putting money in the pot when we just call.

I'd still likely raise this here. The board is very wet and villain has a lot of draws in his range. This is much different from the other thread which was 5-ways and the donk-bet was from a pro.

No. I just wouldn't bet 100% of the time. It would be heavily villain dependent in that case.

Haha - I was about to bring that thread up here. Glad you referenced it. Why do you think it's much different though?

Huh?

Correct, but aren't we letting him name his price with all the draws at the same time then? It's like he's getting what he wants. And we're dancing to his tunes.

Also, how about a minnish raise to not scare away Jx? Like $45-50?

I feel like I got EXPLOITED in this hand.

I think I would just call the flop, if we raise are we stacking off? The turn seems like an obvious raise, to ~100.

You could flat the flop, but the bet on the turn is too small to just call, just in case he has a draw. His bet is weaker here (closer to 1/3rd pot as opposed to 1/2 on flop). Seems to me like he's creating his own price here for his hand to get to see the river, which I would read as either a weak jack or a draw.

You should put in a sizable raise here, small enough for him to call with the jack reasonably but also enough to charge him for the flush draw. I would say raise to ~$100-$125 depending on how likely you think you're facing a jack over a flush (more for flush, less for jack). If he had a jack here and folds to the raise that's fine too. You got him to put in $50 and he didn't get to see the river or a showdown, both of which he wanted.

The bolded is a very broad statement, with no context outside of getting bet into as the preflop raiser. Is this really accurate?

On this flop, HU, with 100bb eff, I'm totally on board for a raise IF we are cool gii here vs this particular v.
But the truth is, I probably just call flop as well. If stack go in OTF I doubt he has tptk, I think you just ran into the absolute bottom of his gii OTF range and you're lamenting the missed value. But...

Raise the turn! There is no way he is betting a strong made hand with that sizing on this board. That is the blankest of blank turn cards. $130/gii. Value recouped.

If the donkbet is close to what I would have bet, I'm ok with flatting. OTF, I would have bet 1/2 pot when checked to, so I'm ok with flatting it. The donkbet OTT, however, is gonna get a raise. No way is 30 into 84 close enough. I probably drop 70 on top.

this

I'm not sure what's unclear there. If V bet over 2/3 of the pot on a board that wet, I might flat, or I might raise, and it would depend a lot on the characteristics of the villain in question.

Are we really happy to gii OTT? He's never gii OTT with worse hands.

How about raise/fold to $100?

You've given us no indication that this is true. V reads matter.


Pot is $144 with your call. You make it $100 and he shoves, are you really folding when pot is $284 just with his call of your raise (444 after his shove). Are you really folding for $160?

Yes, I don't think most of my player pool is stupid enough to shove with worse OTT.

Honestly though, I don't expect him to b/3b turn like ever after betting that sizing, which is indicative of weak Jx and draws mostly. However, in the rare scenario that he does shove, I'm just going to assume he decided to play a set/2p or AA weirdly.

This would be totally different if I was facing this line from a drunk guy in Vegas on a Friday night. Snapcalling there obv.

Then (assume) he is never shoving, and raising is 100% right.

I like to keep stronger holdings in my donk calling range as well so people get the idea that I'm just gonna let them fire into a strong hand and they'll never have a clue. If you just reraise all your strong hands what does it mean when you call on a 2 flush board? Keep thinking "it's llsnl, no one is going to notice" if that's what you want to keep thinking, but I play these stakes and I notice.

I'd just raise on the turn, doesn't have to be a very big raise either, probably just total of a pot size bet going into the turn. Mainly because there's a chance that an overcard to the jack hits and it scares him into folding river facing any sort of sizable bet. The turn is the best time for any sort of reraise in nlhe imo, in a general sense.

Side note in my experience a donk bet from a donk player is top pair almost always. If the player is somewhat competent it is top pair or a flush draw.

the vast majority of live players (read: fish) donkbetting range consists of betting for info, i.e. they have some **** pair and they're trying to induce action. If they have middle pair they bet to see what you do. If you call then they tell themselves maybe theyre beat. If you raise then they tell themselves they're definitely beat. If you fold then they're happy because thats what they wanted. They dont bet for value, they bet to win the immediate pot. If that means making you fold the worst hand they dont care, as far as they're concerned they want whatever they see in the middle at that precise moment in time.

Sooo, with that in mind we should raise donkbets as a bluff and call with showdown value. This also helps mitigate the times they flop the nuts since some fish donkbet to win even with a set or better because they're afraid of being outdrawn.

Flatting flop is good
Should almost certainly be raising turn

there isnt some steadfast rule to call donk bets w overpairs. On many boards, villans Donk/fold almost their entire range, which means that the exploitable line is to raise 100% of your air/draws/weaker made hands/whatever, and call with your value made hands.

On boards like this, you have a pretty decent shot of being outdrawn and it could be a FD, oesd, and youre more than happing to fold Ax overs and gutshots as well. you should be raiisng.

if its J94r, by callng youre keeping him from folding his 9x, and he is value betting himself woth gutshots. Donk/probe bets successfully do their job against medium strength made hands, which is fine because its exploited when you can fold put their entire range with a raise, and when your cbet works especially well due to the weakness of his checking range.

Also calling with AA is better than KK since many donking hands may have 3 additional puts against you.

HU vs. 5-ways is a huge difference regarding how strong a hand has to be to call or raise for value. I also expect a good player to be more polarized than just top pair when donking 5-ways. At least he shouldn't have very many top pairs and will not call a raise with them.