1/3 NL. New table, so not many reads. It is about noon, and the play is tight for the stakes. There have been no 4-way or more raised pots. Effective stacks about 300. Villain limps in mid position, hero raises to 15 in CO with 9h9c, others fold, limper calls.

Flop comes Td8s3d. Villain leads for 5. Call or raise?

I generally consider bets like that a check. I call them if I planned to check behind (I would not on this board) and raise them to whatever I was going to bet if I planned to continue.

looks like one of those block attempts on a draw. Trying to see a turn and river cheap. I would raise to like $20.

What happened, which is probably not correct, was I called. Turn was an offsuit 5, villain bet 15 and I called. River was an offsuit 2, villain bet 20 and I called.

He showed KdJd, a draw like the poster said. He was an old guy.

I was a little surprised to see that hand, as he had a strong draw, about 54% against fine on the flop, but what do you expect from a limp/caller. He could have x/ced or x/red fine with that hand.

I would have raised with an overpair, but I would be building the pot when I don't know where I am at, and my hand has poor playability or potential for improvement. So I don't think calling down in position was that bad. However, I was wondering about it, which is why I posted it.

I'm fine with preflop at this table.

I treat super small donks as checks. So I'd probably do whatever I was planning on doing if he checked to me. I think I'd mostly bet like 1/2 PSB or so with a hand that is probably best but quite vulnerable. My plan would be to follow that up with a turn bet if no obvious draws got there and then check back the river UI.

ETA: FWIW, I don't think the calldown plan is horrible by any means (as I don't think checking back the flop when checked to is horrible, although I would lean to a bet).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Experience reads from too many bad players:

Small donks are bad hands, unless V does it a lot and then it can be a bit more balanced, but check range is now worse (all the mid hands are gone).

Bigger donks are good hands, unless V does it a lot and then it can be a bit more balanced, but check range is now much worse (all the monster hands are gone).


...so in both cases it's worth noticing and betting more often when they check. In the first case I'd also tend to raise the donk more than I'd cbet a random, as an exploit ... the only bad side to doing it a stupid amount is that V will tend to notice and realize the donk is going bad even if they don't know why, and they'll react in an unpredictable way.

I raise thick here. Especially the way that T-8 wrap around our 99. Just say "pot" and slide out 35. Donks are almost weakly made hands at my game. TPNK, 2ndPTK. Sometimes a draw that wants to set a price. I'm trying to get more donking into my game but I find it very hard to balance. I'd have to do it with air sometimes and they get raised so often at my tables..so not sure how to go about it.