My friend who is a solid player texted me this hand. He also texted it to 2 other friends. I am friend 1. Friend 2 is a solid 5/10 player and very successful tournament player. Friend 3 has multiple 6 and 7 figure tournament cashes and plays 25/50 NL daily and plays as high as 100/200 NL when the game runs. Hes a freak of nature. Im sure the other 2 friends are better than me but I have whatever advantage there is from being a reg in this 2/5 game, although I dont know who this villain is specifically.

Hero opens to $20 with AhTd in MP. Button and both blinds call. Assume no reads other than they are rec players that my friend doesnt think are good. That's the only read he gave the friends in the text.

Pot $80. Flop KdJd9d

SB ($255) donks out for $45
BB folds
Hero ($500) does what?
Button ($500) yet to act.

Between the 3 friends he texted this hand to, 1 said Call. 1 said raise and 1 said fold. Clearly there is no 100% correct answer. Bonus points if you guess what my answer was.

All options are fine. Don't think the donk is that strong.

With the button acting behind us, I lean towards raise.

1. Call
2. Fold
3. Raise

$110

I know you play in a room with high hands, so you might have considerable equity here just from that, making folding bad. How much is the HH?

I would fold. Because villain is short he won't be willing to let go of a lot of the hands which have us crushed which we really want to fold out, like AdTx. He probably won't fold QdJ because lolSFD. I feel like we're just hoping he's leading naked top pair, no diamond, that he will fold. This board hits ranges fairly well.

When we float villain will often bet the turn again, committing himself, and we just have to fold. We aren't really getting direct odds to draw and don't have implied odds on anything except a Qd or maybe the Ad. If he checks the turn we probably have a slightly +EV bluff. BU being left to act is a downside.

You said raise.

Both cards have to play for HH so cant win it here.

I vote fold>call>raise

For some reason I thought we flopped the stones.
It's too early in the AM.

All options sort of suck, but I suspect folding here is best.
Then raising to $225 is next

Then calling is well below those

The fact that we could be drawing dead or to 1 out makes me want to fold

FWIW, I think calling and fold are so close to each other. Where I would lean fold.

So raise/fold/call in that order. If I get a read on BTN, I can weigh call up higher.

I think the most optimal is raise with a player behind. (image is important vs some) If you're on BTN I think you have a much clearer argument for flatting the bet than raising, but again, you have an argument for raise.

Folding is fine in all options for obvious reasons, I think it's pretty nitty if you're on BTN though.

I think if you have AdTo you now have more merit to just flatting vs raise but again, there can be an argument for both with having a player to act behind.

SB's donk should be super strong here and our draw ain't that great. I think it's an easy fold, not sure what I'm missing.

This. Raising is just clicking buttons

Raising is certainly the more unorthodox line for some, but it's certainly not clicking buttons.

If you were to argue the stack sizes, you have an argument.

Ok. The sb has a half stack

Really? I feel at this level, donking into 3 is weighted towards a strong made hand that does not want to be outdrawn. 2p+, but weighted towards sets, and baby flushes. Basically, everything apart from the straight flush.

Even if you isolate, I think you're getting called, and you're likely quite a bit behind.

I lean towards a fold here.

(Normally)

Donking strong is a strong hand that doesn't want to be outdrawn.

Donking weak is a weak or drawing hand that wants to see a cheap turn.

Or the nuts

raising a 4 way soaking wet monotone flop when we have one clean out?

just fold.

I must be missing something as well.

Folding readless

Fold. Short stack easily gets it in next street if he wants. Hero only has one clean out on a flop that smashes preflop calling ranges.

I'm folding here, and my guess is you said fold as well.

In my experience this is more true heads up, but donking into 3 others regardless of size, I generally find strong.

+1. I don't see how we possibly have enough FE to justify raising here w/o a more detailed read on SB. Construct a realistic range for SB to be calling a PFR & donking ~60% PSB into 3 players. How much of it is ever folding to our raise, given that our perceived range includes so much Ad & TPTK?

For what its worth I said to fold. I put SB on a non nut flush or Ad with a pair or gutshot. I dont see how we can call without having any idea what cards are good and we dont even have a par yet. I like raising a little better but if I raise I want to shove and I dont want to do that unless Im last to act.

Id really like to pick the brain of the guy who said to call because I just dont get it...and the guy is an absolute beast.

Calling is fine because of the stack depth. The issue to raising is exactly the stack depth. Which makes flatting fine. If V continues on turn with a small sizing, we can jam with a lot of FE. We also will face a check from V a fair %. Our range is also confusing to this V.

Jamming flop is spew because we really don't know what the range means but we can deduce to a relative degree the general range of V.

That's why raising is also fine.

If you raise, it has to be small to setup turn shoves or check behind turn on certain cards. The small raise accomplishes nothing in turns of folds most of the times, but it gives us the edge on turns just as if when we flat flop instead of raising. We might even wager flatting is better because of this awkward stack size. If he comes over the top, it's obvious we have to fold, but donks of this size on this wet of a board, are rarely that strong. People like to c/r.

$110 is fine, I might even go smaller.

Calling is not terrible, it just makes it a little awkward with BTN left to act. If BTN comes along we have to give up a lot.

Remember our pre-flop range plus our call range on flop looks strongish. Like Nut flush draw/tp or overpair or Qdx.

Tough for BTN to get out of line.

I also don't think V donking has a great hand, I'm willing to bet this is a Kx hand here a lot or some type of combo Qdx or Adx

Of course he can have some bigger hands, but he has to think somebody is going to bet this flop and he c/jam at a high clip right. Most are doing this. So again, weighs his range to less stronger hands than normal.

We also get the bonus $EV of image when our play does not work by raising. Same with flat flop/jam turn on smaller sizings (pending turn).

We also have equity in this hand as well vs V's range, which should not be many flushes (if any at all). Also by not raising, we don't have to commit so much to turns.