5/5 NL Hawaiian Gardens 3:00am on a Saturday

Villian (EP) is the only competent player at the table. Played several pots with hero but nothing of real note other than the probably views me as the only thinking player.

1k effective

Hero (SB) is Dealt 88

2 folds, EP raises to 25, 2 folds, CO calls 25, BTN calls 25, Hero calls 25, BB calls 25

Flop (125): A88
Hero checks, BB checks, EP bets 65, 2 folds, Hero calls 65, BB folds

Turn (255): 5
Hero ?

Who goes for a small lead here?

Seems like he has an ace good kicker if he's c-betting into so many people. He doesn't have trips & infrequently has a FH v/ AA. It's safe to assume he'd go for two streets himself at least. If we lead small here, we'd have to lead again OTR, probably with another small sized bet. It's sort of trivial which line gets the most money. Oddly enough, last Tuesday, I had quads 3 times in 20 minutes at the gardens 5/5. I took down medium pots, but it's hard to stack people when you need them to have a boat to do so. (I tried being trappy and just going HAM when I had them).

edit: Don't fret if you didn't stack off. maxing value with flopped quads isn't the most important line to look at in the grand scheme of things since it's so infrequent.

I think he's got an Ace. Maybe a decent Ace and he knows you don't have AK otherwise you'd have 3! squeeze pre from the SB, I guess.

It may feel like you have no control of the action because you got such a big hand. Unfortunately you can't stack villain for the entire 1K. I would force myself to lean for like $100 into that $255 pot and pray to get called and lead again on the river for another 1/2 pot. I suspect leading out into the preflop raiser may look like we have at least an 8 for trips and the only hand calling in that case would be a FH. I hate to check the turn with a hand of 3-streets of value (hell,.. it's got the full 1K value). I think what you can extract if he's got a big Ace is around $400-$450 in the best case scenario. Of course if he's got a FH we stack him for sure because if we get raised on one of our leads the game's over.

I think the best play is to have him with an Ace. What other hand will lead into 3-4 opponents? - If we lead big he's putting us on an 8. No good. We have to gently massage his Ace to look like a mediocre Ace. ..ha..ha ..ha .. man this is like a medical surgery to a man on his dead bad, but we got to do our best, at least try it .. This entire hand play around him having a good Ace. That's it. He's got to have an Ace.

I like a check on the turn. If he checks back, then we go for the check raise on the river under the assumption that he's going for two streets by betting flop and river. You can lead some rivers big like a K river because it looks like you might be trying to get him off a chop.

If he bets once you check the turn, I would call and then do a small lead that looks like a blocker bet on the river. Maybe like 1/4 pot.

Bet 160
Bet tree fiddy OTR

no way you get stacks in vs thinking reg here

I think checking turn is better... Since he raised early gives more weight to AK / AQ so I think he will value bet again. If he checks back you can probably still check-raise the river unless he has JJ-KK in which case he's folding to any bet anyway.

If you check turn and he does bet, I think a check-raise gives V the opportunity for a huge mistake if he thinks you are making a move. You don't have many 8's in your range since you called out of the blinds so he *might* get crazy and ship over top with AK. If he folds to a check-raise he probably wasn't betting river anyway, but leading the turn gives him the chance to make a great laydown and lose the minimum if he does sniff you out.

there's no way V can fold AT+ to a turn donk bet here

his most likely line is to check back, bet river, fold to a raise vs a standard villain, by checking you play right into that. he could have a few diamond backdoor draws he would be barreling with if he is really aggro but he could easily still call with them or even spazz raise shove like every star vs donks bet.

sure he might fold to your river bet 90% of the time, but even him just calling the turn donk bet has more value then you checking twice hoping he bets 130 or something OTR.

turn donk bets are very powerful vs thinking players, much more powerful then chk/r that let's face it, are too often nutted at these stakes.

I don't think a turn donk makes sense here. At this point I think your goal should be 1 street of value (2 is only happening if he bets the turn and/or if he has exactly AA, or if the river is an A), and you have to ask yourself what's the best way to achieve that. If V has anything other than AJ+ or AA he's probably folding to a turn donk bet and you're getting 0 value.

I'd check the turn and let him bet or check behind and just call if he bets. If you flat a 2nd time, you have to decide your river donk size based on what card comes in, with the worst card being a diamond. At that point, V probably folds to almost any sized bet. I'd go really small if a diamond lands. Like 20-30% of pot max.

Any lead on any street is going to look like 8x to a competent player, even more so in a MW pot. If we are going to lead a street it should be on the flop when there are multiple non-competent players in the hand. We can get 3 streets vs them, but likely only 2 vs a thinking player.

you guys are complete wizard if you fold OTT here as villain ROFL

If V holds a hand like A4ss and Hero donks the turn, should he call, thinking that Hero floated the flop to pick up a diamond draw to bluff against?

Or does he call hoping a K or Q hits the river so he can chop with Hero's donk bet with AT?

What exactly does V think he's beating with A-rag once Hero donk bets this turn?

But what does a turn lead from Hero represent? An Ax hand that doesn't want to give another free to card to another Ax hand? A random hand that floated the flop and decided to bluff-rep an 8 on the turn? Or a real 8x hand that waited one street to start shooting? Then like the guy before me just said, weaker Aces might find a fold against that bet.

A check-raise is really strong on the turn too, but now V has committed more and might level himself into putting you on a bluff or Ax since the pot is bigger.

Lead flop is better. You could probably get away w/ 3 1/3ish size bets v a decent Ax here a lot of the time, which should get you more value than checking the flop. Once you check, you can't really take control of the action without turning your hand faceup.

im getting frustrated

i guess you guys are right and V folds everything but 1 combo of 88 and 3 combos of AA to a turn donk bet

do you guys coach?

Do you like to take massive extremes on every position?

Nobody said V was likely to fold AJ+ to a turn donk bet, although getting two streets of value from AJ+ isn't easy against a strong opponent.

We're talking about weak ace hands and the likelihood that your turn donk bet gets folded away and you get $0/zip/zilch/nothing.

You have to weigh the possibility of getting nothing vs. the possibility of getting value from AK/AQ/AJ when you decide to donk bet that turn.

You don't have to worry about playing passively AA, you're getting his entire stack by the end of the hand regardless. Your decision here is how to extract value and donk betting the turn may end up being the worst way to do so.

"Weaker Aces might find a fold" is a little different than "every villain folds every Ace" but sure, I apologize for giving my opinion in a thread for opinions on the poker hand.

The OP didn't really give us much of a read other than "thinking player that knows you are a thinking player" so yeah, he might be able to make a laydown if he... thinks that way.

Betting the turn isn't horrible but there's not much that jumps out to me as making it better or equal to checking. There are no realistic draws unless H floated the flop with nonsense, so V is basically hoping his kicker is good or that H is airballing.

check turn check river

Lead flop 1/3 is interesting

Leading flop is fine

As played check turn - leading turn is meh and doesn't make a lot of sense but I guess you could get looked up light?

If turn checks through, lead river.

There are also merits to 3betting pre - but calling is defiantly good too. He shouldn't be 4betting very wide at all

Are you blind? Are your opponents blind? When you donk turn your hand is never anything other then 8x.

In saying that though maybe float 3straight/flush and donk turn would be a good play but this spot is so irrelevant that it couldn't possibly make any difference. And if we were going for that move we should probably c/r anyway. Also have to be worried about 8x at some frequency from the pfr.

If the V is a thinking player, and believes that Hero is also a thinking player, then he is likely not going to attribute 8x to Hero's range. This is because Hero opened for 5x in early position. 89s A8s would not do that from EP.

Hero did not open from EP. He called an EP raise from the SB.
Also, there’s no rule stating you can’t open 5x from EP with 98s or A8s when you’re 200bb deep.

My bad, thank you for the correction; I misread the action.

At 200bb you're right about range adjustment. Personally, I wouldn't do it because it could put me in some pretty difficult spots on later streets. That said, given effective stacks you can't rule it out.

leading here is fantastic. Lead for like 110.

if he calls turn. check river and let him bet again. then either click it back or shove.

uh.......... no. With H being in the blind, there are more 8's in our range. V is not betting the turn with just AK

Regarding flop, I'm often leading quads on flops like 337, 662, or maybe even A22. But on A88, we're only getting called by a very narrow range that is extremely cautious because 8x smacks our perceived SB calling range. IDK, I just really felt like my hands were tied in this spot.

Winnar. We need to get at least something in on the turn and V is checking back everything but AA. I'm not sure if half pot is better than something like 1/4 pot.... I'm thinking a really small bet is getting called nearly always by any Ax. But either way, going to the river with just 51bb in the middle seems like a big mistake.

Anyway betting is 100% standard for me here but I brainfart check and he checks back obviously.


Hero (SB) is Dealt 88

2 folds, EP raises to 25, 2 folds, CO calls 25, BTN calls 25, Hero calls 25, BB calls 25

Flop (125): A88
Hero checks, BB checks, EP bets 65, 2 folds, Hero calls 65, BB folds

Turn (255): 5
Hero checks, EP checks

River (255): 3
Hero?