3/5, 9 handed.

Villain is 20+ male, no previous history but in about 2 hours he'd been really tight and had seen him fold his cbet to a flop raise once before. He'd only played maybe 5 hands or so other than that, rarely to showdown.
Hero image may be a bit laggy. I'd been raising pf a bit more than normal cos good cards, but postflop I thought I was pretty much playing abc.

Stacks/positions:
Villain (BB): $400+ (effective)
Hero (OTB)

Preflop: Hero opened $25 (KsJd), both blinds called. (Normally I'd open less, but this time I raised higher cos the hand was somewhat marginal and actually I didn't want callers.)

Flop ($69): AcJs5s
SB checked, villain donked $25, hero raised to $80.

My thinking there was actually to raise mainly for information. Since villain had been pretty straightforward so far I thought I could make correct decision based on what he did next.

Villain almost insta-shoved for the rest of his stacks.

Thoughts on call/fold, and more importantly, whether raising for info was a good move?

I believe that raising for 'information' is really overrated. I never use that as a justification for raising - instead I raise for value, building pots, and bluffs. Your hand has decent showdown value, and I think either a fold or a call/re-evaluate on the turn would be OK. Gotta say, I'm not loving the relative position and would lean toward a fold as a result.

Raising for info seems too much like lighting money on fire to me. If you expect to get the majority of Villains Ax hands to fold then fine, you can run that line. If you are interested in protecting your equity, I think a call does that just fine.

As played its an insta-fold. You are way behind anything besides a naked flush draw against a player who was described as 'tight'. So either this guy doesn't fold his c-bets because he is playing premiums or else your read is way off. Either way his range has a lot of Axss, AJ, AQ+ in it and we are only beating a bluff with very little equity against any made hand.

If villain has been tight and passive you don't really need to raise for information. His donking range is mostly hands that beat you and good draws. You can safely fold second pair no real draw to his first bet. If that is too weak because he can be donking enough mediocre draw and might donk JX also then call and evaluate.

Raising for information is rarely a good idea. To be worth while requires a good read on villain's play and it has to give you more information then flat calling. And not just a little more information, it has to be good enough information to justify the extra money you are putting in the pot.

Never raise for info. All you do is make better hands call/raise and worse hands fold. Thats the opposite of what you want. If you raise and he folds then what info did you learn? Heck you could apply this reasoning preflop and just go allin and get all the info about his hand you need. If he calls youre beat, if he folds youre ahead. Congratulations.

KsJd is a call for me. His small bet could mean anything. You have the best 2nd pair, and have backdoor straight and flush draws. Raise is pointless. Call and play some turns.

KJo is not a marginal hand to open with from button. Why would you raise less?

Unless the SB we don't know about is a mega whale, an unbalanced 5x RFI OTB is kind of a disaster. You can probably steal the blinds; if you can't you can get called profitably wide with a smaller sizing, but this is setting yourself up for punishment.

AP fold until you notice a frequency that can't support it being a TP hand. I literally can't figure out why people do this, but I do know readless it's overwhelmingly likely you are behind.


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Easy call. Easier if the As was on board. Pre is good. Raise is horrendous.

@Unikpkr: your OP is incomplete. You say that you raised for information & when your V provided same, you failed to give us your interpretation of his shove.

I only raise for value, as a bluff/semi-bluff, or to actualize my equity. I don't need to know where I'm at in this hand, I know I have the draw to the nutz on the turn. Maybe if I believed I was either WA/WB & couldn't improve to a better hand, I would consider bet[raise]/folding. However, that would be on the assumption that my calling a river bet AND not being sure if I was WA/WB would be more expensive than bet[raise]/folding the turn AND that would be an action I'd take only if I was certain V doesn't bluff after I act in that particular situation.

I would never raise in your situation, because it's a play that could give my V the opportunity to crush my opportunity to draw the nutz on the next street. Ever.

The thing is obviously we learn something about our opponents hand when we raise, but that should never be the sole justification for raising. For instance we can raise Jacks on a dry low flop because we think our opponent might call with worse. Now if our opponent comes over the top we've got some information, that he's either bluffing or has a good hand. But we were never raising just to induce action from him, so neither should we on the flop.

If you go around betting for information you're just going to lose a ton of money because the only info you're going to learn is that you had them beat anyway in which case they fold and you win nothing extra, or they have you crushed in which case you lose your bet. Obviously these 2 events can still coincide when you just call, but you give yourself an extra street of action to see what happens next. Why end it on the flop when you can see the turn for the same net value?

Grunch from title alone: Bad idea.

OK, off to read OP.

Post title alone grunch (but still read only OP): I'm fine with the raise if it's a bluff that also happens to garner some info, as his donk is small and biased towards a pair below TP. If it was primarily for info, why bother? If you call, he'll give you info OTT.

Message received loud and clear. To clarify, my thinking at the time was there was no way this particular villain would reraise with anything less than 2 pairs. So if he only called I was planning 2nd bullet to get him off Ax. Obviously since he shoved I folded. He showed one card, Jc. Based on how he played (actually based on how he almost didnt play any hand in the whole 4 hours session), pretty sure I had at most 3 outs here.

Sounds like most suggestions here is I could've just called flop and fold turn unimproved. If this guy fired twice it's probably I was behind as well, and didn't need to waste money on flop raise. Isn't that a bit passive though? As the preflop raiser I should just give up the initiative and control of the hand so easily when someone donked into me?

Yup. It's passive. So?

When you have V's adjusting to exploit, counter-adjust. Most LLSNL Vs are just playing their own hand, though.

To me that flop raise accomplishes very little other than spewing chips. A call outs you in position to either bluff with more equity or improve after the turn. There isn't enough in the pot to really be going crazy fighting for it. Even calling a small turn bet by him isn't bad.

By just calling you close the action and don't give him a chance to go over the top.

He may have just had it but you could have played it better in my opinion and given yourself a chance.

Never raising this board. Holy call and play a turn. If he leads turn on almost every turn I can imagine we are folding. Heck if he lead on the turn J or K for set or two pair for hero, I still don't raise, those would be calling hands.

If villain checks turn we can check back 100% of our range even when we make a set or two pair.

This isnt a dick measuring contest. Lets say you flop a royal flush and someone donks into you. Do you really feel you've lost control of the hand? Just because you elect to call doesnt mean you arent still outplaying them.