I was playing 2/5 in my local casino, six players. I was BB with 76. Folded to the Btn who opened for 15, only I called. Btn is a typical loose weak rec player. Flop Was AQ6. I bet 2/3 pot and Btn folded. Obviously this hits his range a lot harder than mine, but I've had a lot of success with this play against weak rec players. What do you guys think of this play, have you tried it yourselves, maybe you hate the play or bet size, or is it ultimately doomed to fail?

Don’t love the play. Lately my response to this sort of thing (facing a donk bet on a board that favors my range) has been to float the flop reasonably wide (BDFD+, gutshot, any pair, Ace/King high), and wait for the opponent to check to me and then I bet to steal the pot away.

Maybe this play works well against weak tight players who will overfold to aggression. If you think he’ll fold half his range (incl all 77-JJ) to this bet, then go for it.

I agree with Chaos. I don't love the play and would proceed similarly with floating and stealing.

Do it when you have the range or nut advantage. This board is the opposite of that

+1

TBH, the better play in this situation with 76s is to 3bet or fold pf if the villains are going to fold to a donk bet on the flop. I suspect that you are having some selective memory issues where you remember all of the times it worked but are forgetting many of the times you got called and had to give up.

As usual I'm left totally confused by venice's post

OP what you posted isn't something that will work well long term. Vs a button open range it's not the worst thing since we don't have a massive range disadvantage (especially since I assume you don't three bet anywhere close to enough from bb vs btn) but we do have a massive nut disadvantage so if you do this you can't ever double barrel which people will eventually catch on to.

What others have suggested is the easiest way to combat this and I would even take it a step further and defend my entire range on the flop. Even the most stationy players won't have enough hands to call down when they check turn. We can literally blast atc for huge bets and print

It sounds like most are opposed to the play - I assume you're all just checking and folding to the inevitable cbet? (As I used to do.) I started experimenting with the play some months ago and have been getting so many folds (I only do it against the weak/oblivious players) that I figured the number must be at least 70%, when I only need 40% to break even. I only started recording results recently, and have recorded 5/6 folds so far. I don't see the point of trying to 'balance' my bluffs against this type of player, since they don't tend to play long sessions and spend most of their time with their noses in their phones anyway. Since they would only connect with the flop about 1/3 of the time, and this type of player rarely floats, then shameless over-bluffing should show a profit in the long run. Anyway I'll keep logging results and see how it works over the longer term.

I would rather cr than donk

As with any bet, you should be thinking about what you are trying to do here and what sort of respones, with what subrange, you are hoping for from the villain.

If you are doing this as a bluff, think about the hands in the villain's range you are hoping to fold. If you are doing this for value, think about what worse hands you are hoping to get calls from.

In this particular hand, you are going to get calls from JX and better and fold out the villain's air. You are not going to fold out hands like KT, T9, or AK, against which you are not doing well.

There are situations that call for good, exploitative donk leads. This isn't one of them.

I'm not going to fold out T9 on an AQ6 board? Either that's a typing mistake on your part or you're playing on a different planet to me. I'd also expect weak recs to often fold gutters like KT as they make all kinds of folding errors on a regular basis. To give just one of many recent examples: recently I had 98s in the SB and a weak rec opened for $15 from the cutoff. I 3bet 4x and he folded showing AKo! (Naturally I said, "nice play, I had aces!" ) People like that will fold even second pair to a 2/3 donk lead often enough to make such plays profitable. Either you don't play against weak recs often or you're giving them WAY too much credit.

Sorry, misread the flop as QJ6

Donking bottom pair on an AQ6 board is suicide.

As I pointed out, betting 2/3 pot only requires you to win 40% of the time to break even. The hands you mention that Villain would call with constitute less than 50% of the Btn open-raising range of the typical weak rec. So please explain how such a bet is "suicide"?

While not suicide, it's not optimal. Especially if you read your opponents wrong (it happens) and get raised. After digesting this thread (I did enjoy reading it), I really prefer the 3-bet, or fold line preflop.

Is the board usually this bad when you do it though? That ace is going to connect with a lot of your opponents range. Is the board only connecting 1/3 of the time when much of his range has an ace or queen in it?

The first post of the thread says that villain is loose though.