Let's say we are playing 9 handed tabled of 1/2 NL. Most stacks are close to $200 but the primary villian in this hand has slightly over $100 and is in EP. Hero is on the button and raises over several limpers to $17. Unfortunately, all the limpers call.
The flop comes 676 rainbow
The blinds check to the villian who bets $50 (close to half of his stack) and the action comes back to you. In a situation like this how often does the villian have a 6 or how often are you ahead with say 88+???
It seems like basically a raise or fold spot because calling is just silly. Assuming we have no reads, what is the best action?
The reason this is hypothetical btw is that I actually only had AK and so it was an easy fold, but then I started wondering what if I had something like JJ and what would I do in this kind of spot? So many times players love to check trips in this spot, but at the same time I now have to put in close to 50bb to find out.
A donk bet on a paired board is almost always a pair of the unpaired card. So, 7x on your 676 board. As a matter of fact, you can raise these bets with near impunity when you hold an over pair to the board. Mind you, this is in my experience only, but seems to hold true in most LLSNL games. Paired boards are great for bluffing for this reason, since you'll lay down AK.
Paired boards are great for bluffing for this reason, since you'll lay down AK.
Was right with you until this part. I think bluffing paired boards suck, because most of our Vs are unbelievers on paired boards. I bet 3 streets with overpairs after donks, and usually get paid off. OTOH, I no longer c-bet air on paired boards much.
Depends on the Villain. No half-decent player is slowplaying 6x in a 12-way raised pot on this flop (Edit: barring a read that the original raiser always cbets), nor trying to stack off with 7x. However, the fact that this particular Villain limp-called 15% of his stack in EP suggests he's probably not a half-decent player, so I'll concur that this is 7x often enough to not fold overpairs.
With no read, I'm pretty much paying off the short stack with QQ+ and making a judgement call with JJ/TT. This is because the higher the hero's pair the more over pairs to the board hero beats and the less risk villain limped a higher pair. Exact stack sizes and the risks of anybody else getting involved can change that. One fundamental factor is that villain limp/called in EP for a big chunk of his stack in a multiway pot, indicating villain is not good and can be donking with just top pair on this sort of board. If I think villain is never making that sort of mistake and his limp/call could be trapping with a middle/good pair then I would need a stronger hand to call.
This is a hugely villain dependent situation. Any information you have on villain's EP limping range and donking range make a huge difference here. Any idea if the short stack is tilting also matters. Tilting villains are much more likely to bet with any part of board while more balanced ones may realize that low pairs are rarely good.
The board also makes a difference. The lower the board the more likely I am to call with a decent over pair because there are more lower over pairs we beat and fewer hands that actually hit the board. Compare a 988 board to a 544 board. Villains limping preflop with middle suited hands can easily have the eight, but are more likely drawing on 544.
I can't tell how many people are in the hand, but if there are four players, playing random cards, then about 31.45% of the time someone has trips. So it's not that unusual in a very multi-way situation.
Even loose-passives aren't playing anywhere close to random cards, though. An opponent playing the PokerStove top 50% of hands has a six about 4% of the time on this flop (looking at total combos w/ card removal). This gets back to what QuadJ said about boards like 988 being somewhat more worrisome than boards like 544.
