Villain seems a competent reg. He likely views me as an ABC nit. Been card dead.

400+ effective

V makes it $6 from UTG+2, fold, Hero $22 with KK, folds to V who calls.

Flop $45
J85r

V $20, Hero (already confused) calls

Turn $85
J85 3

V check, Hero $50, V calls
(he gives a weird speech - "Oh damn that's a lot, Oh wait it's not as much as I thought"

River $185
J853 7

V $20, Hero ???

On the flop stop and go I'm confused. The size is small but why is he donking out here at all? On the turn I figure "Ah he's got like TT or TPGK or something". I go sort of smallish hoping to get value. I'm going to value bet most any river - probably check back an A.

But wtf with this river donk? I have a feeling like he's setting his price and I need to raise but is there anything he calls? It's possible he hit like 87 for 2 pair but I don't think he'd call the turn bet with 87.

I would by default treat those mini bet as a check.

Just ask yourself how much would you value bet if he checks to you?

A standard play after he checks would be bet 100-120 and fold to his jam.

Raise to 120 here all day.

My default read on flop small donk bets from fish is they are weak pairs or trying to set the price for a draw (even a draw to an Ace with 3 outs!). I tend to raise them pretty liberally with bluffs so I feel I ought to also raise them when I have it too.

From a competent reg I'm not so sure. Leading the flop with a set to induce is now a possibility. It could also be QQ/AJ "finding out where it's at". Not very competent but if he views you as a nit he probably has you on QQ+ yourself and a weak lead with QQ/AJ could actually help save him some money.

The trouble with raising the flop vs someone who will lead flop for half pot with JJ 88 55 QQ AJs TT 99 T9s 98s 87s is that he will fold everything apart from sets and QQ and he's potentially got more sets than QQ. You've then isolated yourself against a range that's slightly stronger than yours but you're basically comitted because you've got a ton of dead money.

I can see why you were confused and I understand the flop call.

When V checks turn I'm completely convinced he has no set and obviously no draws complete. It's also unlikely he has QQ/AJ since he'd have gained confidence after you call his small bet on flop and decide to bet again on turn most of the time. So I'm ranging him on TT/99 98s 87s and T9s at this point.

You bet 50 into 85 which seems about as much as you could get from TT/99/87s and enough to give a bad price to T9s. Seems reasonable to me.

River V bets an absolutely absurd 20 into 185 when the 7 comes. So, with my range for V and ignoring any forking of his range due to river bet size; V has 6 combos of 2pair/straights and 12 combos of TT/99.

Ridiculously I don't think you can raise because I'm sure V folds his TT and 99 and you get called and beaten by 87s and raised allin by T9s.

Obviously if I'm wrong about V and he is actually not at all competent he could have QQ/AJ/KJ/QJ here and call your raise and lose. That could be 36 combos you can get $100 out of. That's huge +EV, unless he is competent...

I have a general policy of playing it safe when faced by confusing situations. Here I'm not confident of my range for V, I feel like not raising is an error but I can't be sure so I'm going to just call and see wtf he has.

raise/fold flop 65

as played raise/fold river ~75

Call flop - more ott (or check)

Riv is an amateur hour blocking bet or an induce - pretty easy to r-f it as per above poster.

He's obviously clicking buttons and trying to figure out why is a waste of time. Flop you should probably click as its the easiest way to stack his Jx or whatever.

Otr figure out how many 9T and 87 combos he has and then figure out how many Jx combos he has and then decide if half of his value range that we beat will call a raise and at what sizing.

I don't understand r/f flop at all. What worse is calling? What better is folding? What draw are we protecting our equity against?

River really does feel like a blocking bet but what's he calling if we raise? Even $75 is less that we'd have bet the river if he checks. I don't think he's good/aggro enough to 3! bluff us here ever so r/f seems okay but I don't know what we can even target that will call. Like in a way his blocking bet - if it is that - works regardless since if we raise it's strong than if we just get to bet out $95 or $120 even.

I think he's a lot more likely to be taking this line with a straight draw that got there or a set than he is with a 1pair hand that is going to bet/call. This river bet looks like a bet to induce to me.

Obv if he's going to play QQ/Jx/etc. this way then a call leaves a lot of value on the table; however, I'm not confident he's going to call those hands for $100 more and I'm very confident he's never folding better than KK. As ragequit said, I think you have to call here and not really love it.

I'm not sure about r/f but you gotta raise these flop donks for fat value man. If you are truly afraid of folding value you can click (min raise or slightly more than min) but this guy is giving you the keys to stacking him. Start the car.

They can and will call with worse. Ask the tens of thousands of dollars bills I've lit on fire trying to bluff raise donk bets.

Calling leaves a lot of value on the river. I have seen enough players making a blocking bet and leveling themselves into calling with top pair when facing a raise.


I got thin value by raising this river many times. I got caught bluff by some fishes/reg as well because they would put you on no showdown value hands that you are trying to buy the pot.


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I like the min re-raise to $40. Put the confusion back on the villain. No? Then just call and see his hand.

This. Almost always here villain has a Jack. He's trying to set his price each street. You have position, the most powerful factor in poker. Use it. He's giving you information so use it. It's ok to get confused by these bets, but almost always it's a mistake to get confused and do nothing cause you're confused.

Meh, you could also use this logic to argue against your play on the turn. What I'm saying is, how would you respond if I told you it was a mistake to bet the turn when it was checked to you and I tried to back up my statement with the above logic?

I believe that his confusing and weird lines is indicative of pocket 10s or 9s. With that being said I would Raise/fold the river bet for value.

Raising flop would have been fine if V is some kind of fish who will stack off with a load of JX but read is conpetent reg. Anyway hero didn't raise flop and V checked turn. I don't believe, with that line, that V now has sufficient strength with any hands KK is ahead of to call a rIver raise.

Hero has 1-pair and, if he calls river and wins he gets:

1) $112 out of Villain's stack
2) to see exactly what hand this "seemingly competent reg" takes this nut-job line with.

Personally I'm happy with the chips and the enhanced read on a reg. Also I'm actually keen to see what he has now. Which is another good reason to flat river, for the chance to laugh uproariously at particularly weird hands V might have.

Top 3 funniest hands for V to show are:
1) AA
2) JJ
3) 77 tied with 33

Of course he's going to show us AJ because that'll be the most annoying for us

My turn bet targets QQ, Jx, TT, 99. I suppose all of those call a flop raise too.

The flop call is as much "Oh **** am I beat" as it is "Let's not scare him out of the pot"

I might be wrong but "raise" always sounds scarier than "bet". So I think that even on a blank turn V is more likely call call $50 on the turn than he is to call a $50 raise on the flop. It also gives him the chance to level himself into "He's only betting because I checked"

9 times out of 10 hands I post with a read on V make me refine (or completely change) my read on V. Including the hands we played after this I'd got with "competent reg who occasionally takes a really bizarre line"

grunch. The flop bet looks like a pair of Js or 8s to me. I don't think we need to raise flop, we can get value on turn + river.

River: V can have lots of top pair combos, 98s, 87s, A8 hands. Raise to 120/fold to 3bet to get value from all the 1 pair hands.

Raise to $150. His speech play is reverse-misdirection and OTR his calling range (jx) is inelastic so go big.