That's worthy of discussion, imo.

If we lead out and get called rather than raised, what do we do here? I'll note that I think V is more likely to raise his AA/KK here than flat.

But hypothetically, if we're looking to get stacks in when we lead and protect against a flat:

- 2/3 PSB otf, small overbet OTT
- 50 otf, PSB OTT
- PSB otf, jam for less than pot OTT

The theory has practical application. Basically, if I were to ever play against you in a pot, I would know that there is at least a chance you are donking out with your big hands (and bluffs, but you have so few big hands in a spot like this). So the way I would counter this would be to barrel a wide range of bluffs and value hands whenever you check, because you simply don't have enough strong hands to defend your checks with if you are donking even just a few of them.

This villain is never going to exploit this, plus we know his exact hand lol so in this hand, your line is a fine option imo.

Jfc my bad were oop - routine ck-shove OOP against a player who is going to b making a betting mistake on this board always. Johnny has this thread on lockdown.

Also worth noting that having V pot-fold is a good result when he has a near breakeven call against hero’s range (and actual hand).

What? Hero stated V has AA or KK only...how is that breakeven vs H's holding (range maybe, but holding cant be right)?

First of all, pre-flop seems beyond horrible with these stacksizes against a guy who you know has AA/KK and who you probably should know will PSB the flop, because let's face it, this kind of player always PSB's the flop after 3betting with AA/KK.

On the flop you obviously shove, since there's a zero percent chance this guy will fold his AA/KK and according to you that's his entire range, so calling would make no sense whatsoever.

Against this same guy, with these stacksizes, the whole "to donk or not to donk, that's the question" is probably an irrelevant discussion. Yes, this guy will indeed raise your donkbet and stack-off if you ship it, just like he will stack-off if you c/s. So it doesn't matter at all what you do. You flopped gin and you're certain the money's going in on the flop.

In general, though, it can be an interesting discussion, but personally I don't see any benefit to donking flops into the 3better. Sure, I can probably think of a couple scenarios where it would be a sexy thing to do, but in general I just don't get it. Most of the time you're just better off check/raising, check/calling or check/folding. Especially against opponents that don't automatically raise or fold to your donkbets. What if they just call? What have you gained then exactly? Sure donkbetting in 3bet pots can seem to serve you well often enough, but I highly doubt you're actually winning more or losing less in the long run than by checking and taking it from there.

This is an interesting point, hadn't thought about that at all.

This is an extremely messy strategy. Perhaps it’s something with which you can make money via deception, but it doesn’t mean it’s making you the most money. Also, when you start playing IP Vs that aren’t ******ed, they can easily shred you by more frequently calling wide on flops and then dominating late-street play with some fairly default lines.

This is also interesting, thank you. If you're prone to donking, you might indeed be telling villain you don't have certain hands (often enough) when you do decide to check.

Mike will probably counter that he's super balanced himself, since he's not particularly averse to blowing his own horn, but still.

You can do all the maths if you want but his pot-call is not some massive mistake here. Granted any time we are ckr here he is losing when he continues, but he doesn’t know that well enough to fold anyway. His betting mistake is a direct result of us having checked to him in the first place which is part of why checking as a pfc is part of a very sound strategy.

I don't get what you are saying as these two statements seem in conflict:

1. "...his pot-call is not some massive mistake here."
2. "...any time we ckr here he is losing when he continues"

My point was sometimes lead/3! gets his stack when CRAI will not (I disagree that lead/3! looks way stronger all the time). I dont think we care if he continues...we just want to find the best way to GII now.

It’s not a conflict, it’s just a question of how much we win when he chooses to call his equity vs folding it. Here, we win ~$200 (quick estimate) when he calls and $120 folds. So we always want a call, but he still is getting a better-than-it-seems price on a call to the point where having him fold and we can dodge variance/always win 120 is still ok.

OK I see. Sure, a fold isn't bad when V has some equity versus our holding...so your argument really is that a check/shove increases the likelihood of that occurrence more than the bet/3! line, since V's odds to call off the rest will be worse on a check/shove line from H instead of bet/3!. Thanks for clarifying.