The main villain in this hand is a relative unknown. He had just sat down at the table and won a decent size pot, so his stack was a little over $400. He was a younger, white male probably in his late 20's, early 30's, and he did not strike me as a particularly good or bad player, probably very recreational. At this point, I am unsure if he is a thinking player or not. My stack to start this hand is just shy of $300 as I had been struggling so far at the table, but he doesn't know this.

The action goes like this. 3 players limp, including villain, I raise to $21 in the CO with T T.

The blinds fold, 2 limpers fold, and the villain described is my only caller. The pot at this point is $52.

FLOP: 9 5 2

He checks, I bet $45 (which admittedly is probably a little too much), and he calls. Pot is now $142.

TURN: 6

He checks, I bet $100, and he very quickly calls. Pot is now $342.

RIVER: Q

He donk shoves on me. I have $130 left in my stack to call.


How often is he turning his hand into a bluff here, and how profitable is calling? He's obviously got hands in his range that can beat me, but how often is he making this donk bet with a hand with showdown value such as any 9, any queen, or JJ/TT type hands?

If I assign him a range of sets, straights, 2 pair, overpairs, any 9, missed FD's, and underpair type hands like A5, A6s, and A2, I estimate his equity to be roughly 35% to my 65%.

On the river, if I take out marginal showdown hands like these smaller pairs, all 9's, and just just assign his range to include Sets, straights, 2 pair, queens, and all missed FD's (excluding ones with the Ts and board cards), I estimate the equity to be roughly 50/50.

Equity wise, according to this, it's a call all day. But how accurate is my above assessment of his range? What hands is he making this donk bet with? Is he turning showdown worthy hands into a bluff, or given the stack sizes, is this ever a bluff? Can he really be expecting me to fold my hand if I was more towards the top of my range with AA or KK?

I think that's a call, his line looks like a missed fd 100% of the time, lets just hope it wasn't a Q high fd

Yeah you're calling, sad if he shows up with a pair of queens, or a weird set line

Agree. Most don't slowplay sets on 2 streets esp on a wet board. I think he would be less likely to shove a QsXs when the Q hits than some other missed FD.

After 3 limpers at 1/3, I probably raise slightly more preflop. But your raise got things HU in position, so well done.

Other than the flush draw the board is fairly dry, so I'd probably just bet in the $30-$35 range.

I probably lean towards checking back the turn, mainly for reasons I outlined in current thread involving pot controlling vs value betting. Although we really don't know if this opponent is aggro vs callingstationish, I think for now I err on the side of caution. Any reasonable bet now commits our 100 BB stack to having to call a shove on a safe river card. Sure hope we're good.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah I check the turn and snap all non spade rivers and non Ax

Call. You only have to be right like ~30% of the time here which u should be vs. this type of villan

Grunch.

As you mentioned, flop bet is too big. But with the turn snap call, donk shove line and your remaining stack, it's a call.

This is very close with no reads at all and getting 3.6 to 1 on a call. You have shown a lot of aggression throughout the hand, I doubt he is doing this with a one pair type hand. I feel it might be a hand like Q9s, or KQss/QJss. All in all I think it is a call.

Thanks for pointing me to that other thread, great discussion there on this concept!

I typically have not struggled with the "pot control" concept of checking back IP. On dry boards, I'll check back and on drawy boards, I'll fire another barrel. Up until reading that other thread, I would have never considered checking back this turn ever, but I understand that it makes the river easier to play, and we're really not losing much value to players that will bet the river with hands that we beat.

The problem with that in this hand as opposed to the hand in the other thread (on a board of 8 5 4 3 with 2 diamonds) is that in this hand, I have zero read on the villain. I have no idea what he's capable of and how he will try to play the river. That being said, are you still checking this back against an unknown???

Also, as I pointed out, my mistake in this hand was my large Cbet which bloated the pot and put me in a spot with a huge river pot with $130 behind and less than TP. A line of $30 Cbet and then maybe $65 turn bet would have been much better in hindsight.

With a mediocre hand vs an unknown, would you rather play a large pot or a small pot? Checking back the turn keeps the pot small, which is the type of pot I'd rather play against an unknown.

Git'salsopossibleImightbemissingoutonhugevalueG

sigh call

Makes sense, rather not build a huge pot with a mediocre pair vs. an unknown.

I'm just struggling now with the pot control option vs. taking a better betting size line of something like 30 on the flop, 60 on the turn. Tough to tell what's better vs an unknown in this spot but definitely good to think about and discuss.

Thanks, GG