Our kicker isn't good. Our kicker is a turd.

We were already bluffing when we raised pre with ATo. That's a speculative hand.

If we're afraid of V having better AX, and getting sticky with it, we should just fold flop, not call. If we're bluffing, we should raise, not call. We block V's AX, and we have AA, QQ, AK and AQ in our range as the PFR. Our hand is actually pretty good to turn into a bluff here, on this board, the way this was played.

Even if we spike an A or a T on the turn, how thrilled can we be, if we think V is donking flop with AQ? If V has AK or AJ, we're just praying to spike a T.

I see a lot of passive players flat call pre with all sorts of AX and KX combos, and when they donk into me on the flop, I'll frequently raise them. Very often, they'll fold like a lawn chair. If not, they'll typically check turn. If they 3B, it's just an easy fold, unless we have the goods.

SB flatting pre and donking flop with AK here is terrible. If he's going to just flat pre, he should just check flop. If V just checked, hero would have c-bet more than V bet on flop, and probably barrelled turn huge. V's sizing allows hero to realize more of his equity with his entire range, and if hero has AA, AQ, QQ, 44, or KK, V is just torching money. The way he played this, he literally won the minimum.

Yes, we will lose sometimes when we raise. We'll also sometimes fold out better hands, or push opponents off a chop, and deny equity from hands that can catch up.

It's poker. Not bingo.

ATo is a top 15% hand which becomes much stronger when we are talking about BU vs BB. In this spot, it very likely smashes the limpers' range and it also very likely smashes the BB's range.

Top pair fourth best kicker on this flop 4 way is a medium strength hand that wants to see a cheap showdown.

While it does have a blocking property, it's still not a good bluff hand IMO, because the best bluff hands are hands that have blockers for value, unblockers for the folding range of our opponents, little showdown value and if we are on the flop -outs that can turn it into a strong hand. ATo does have showdown value and has very few outs which don't make it into a particularly strong hand.

Like, if you want to bluff this board, do it with KdJd, or even with hands like 6d7d and 7d8d, though I am not sure whether it's prudent when we are talking about 4 way.

It really depends on the range they are donking. Some donk 10%, other 30%, others 50-60%. The wider they donk, they wider you can check raise, but the tighter they donk, the less you check raise. If they donk whenever they connected with the board, the exploit isn't to check raise, but to bet all of your air whenever they check.

It is terrible, but this is 1/2 and many want to see if they hit the flop.


All in all, based on this action, exploitatively, i think it's far more optimal to raise the turn for two reasons. Villain's sizing narrows his range to what he has, a hand like a strong Ax (but not AQ) and draws. So, we want to get value from draws and try to move him off a hand that likely beats us. The second reason is that based on the flop betting and the fact we simply called him, the Q hits us more than it hits him, even though that's a very small part of our range.

I would never put it past the average gambler to do anything, it's not the final table of the WSOP where everyone plays like an elite professional.

I would of folded to his flop bet so I only lost 20 bucks but you gave your whole stack away by giving him too much credit and assuming "he can't have AK, because he didn't 3bet pre" (not tyrna brag or anything but my wr in these threads is like astronomically high bc I think about the hands I don't jus press buttons).

Very interesting if we can jam river. We have over fulls he doesn’t and some players will 3b pure with AQ pre. He also shouldn’t have AK and I doubt JT just donks out. People make insane laydowns against overbets.

That's hindsight thinking.

We don't know what the turn will be when V donks the flop. We have to make a decision then - fold, call, or raise. We can get value from worse 1P and draws, and possibly get V to fold better AX if we raise.

If we raise and V calls, he'll almost certainly check to us on the turn, when we can barrel or check back. We don't want to let V dictate the action and pot size with this small donk-bet line, which allows his range to realize equity cheaply when he's OOP.

If we decide to just call flop, then, yes, absolutely, we should raise this turn. Which is why I said in my first post in this thread - raise flop, but AP, raise turn, and AP, raise river.

We might say flat calling lost hero the minimum here, but hero might have taken the pot down with a 3x raise on the flop, which would have been the same amount he lost by calling V's three donks. I'd rather raise-fold flop for value than call off these three donk bets when we can't do better than a chop on the river.

We can let V take a cheap card on the flop, and then consider raising turn when he takes this sizing, but at that point, we are definitely bluffing, no matter what our blockers or unblockers are, and we're going to lose more when V gets sticky with AK, because he doesn't believe we have AQ, because he thinks we probably would have raised flop.