Hi all, just some thoughts about this live hand I recently played?

Live cash 1-2 game. Been at table for 1hr, generally tight but readless. I start with 250, villain has me covered (~450)

Folds to me on button with J️5️
I raise to 9.
SB calls, BB folds (pot 20)
2 players to flop of J️2️7️

Villain donk bets 12. I raise to 37. Villain 3bets to 112.

At this point what would you do and why?

Appreciate thoughts

Fold

I'd just dump this PF. Only exception might be if the blinds were so tight that I'd be tempted to raise. Against 1-2 NL villains I doubt that's the case.

I would have just called the donk bet on the flop because a lot of times he has a hand like a jack or a higher flush draw that he isn't folding to a raise. I'd call, and use my position advantage to see what happens on the next round. Overplaying flush draws on the flop is a common leak.

The flush draw is actually pretty weak because if villain also has one he is likely to have an ace, king or queen of hearts which all have us beat, and those are cards that players love to play. This is one reason why I muck PF.

If our flush outs are good then it looks like we're likely to win stacks because villain looks like he is going to get all-in pretty soon. But if he has sets or two pair then he has outs to a boat to beat us even if we hit a flush. Our jack and five outs aren't going to be useful enough against sets and J7.

At first I was thinking flop is an easy call but it's not as easy of a situation as I originally thought. I'll have to plug in some ranges and see how we measure up if villain has some flush draws with at least one overcard here in addition to sets and I'm not sure what else he could have here. J7? An overpair he didn't reraise PF? I guess I would call because against sets we have flush outs and against higher flush draws we still have significant equity with a pair.

I don't get how you can be readless after an hour at the table.

Edit: Equity looks better than I thought so I'm calling. Worst case scenario is we only face sets and are around 30% to win. Throw in some higher flush draws and we do even better.

It blows my mind that you are readless after an hour of play. Without even watching him play 1 hand I can look at a player and construct a somewhat decent range of hands that he is likely to play like this. After an hour of play it can become very obvious.

Anyways, this is a shove or fold spot. In game vs an unknown I'm probably always shoving here simply because i expect a lot of flush draws in his range. The problem with this board is if his range is just value hands it is heavily weighted towards sets since there aren't many 2 pair combinations here (and if that were the case, this is actually a fold).

If he does this with Axhh then you can get it in. If it is only sets or you are not sure, then just fold.

I'm folding pre 100% of the time. If they're folding often to small opens, I'll open smaller. But I'm never making a larger than pot-sized raise, when it's folded to me on the button with J5s.

On the flop I'm never calling.

If the turn is the 3c, and the Villain shoves, what are you doing, knowing the Villain could have AhKh or a set? If the turn is the 3h, and the Villain shoves, what are you doing, knowing the Villain could have AhKh or a set?

On the flop I'm never raising planning to fold.

Fold pre. You can even fold OTB in 6max. On the flop I'd def call the donk bet

I would fold pre here exactly 0% of the time. Prefer a smaller open though (maybe even a limp).

Thanks all for your replies. Steve: thanks for your detailed reply, it's food for thought. Even though I've been at the table for an hour, villain was away from table for a fair bit of that. The only time he played a pot was the pot before where I won at showdown with 2pair.
It seems that there is an argument for shove, call and fold here? Flop raise was to hopefully get to check back turn for a cheap look at my FD so I was kinda thrown off by his reraise OTF. For me, it felt like a shove or fold spot as I discounted a call on the basis of difficult turn decision if a non heart came. Question is, is it +ev here to shove given action so far and stack sizes or is it a mistake to fold here given my hand equity with TP+FD? Think decision would be easier if I had A️J️ it given the spot, I'd like to know what people think is best play here? Welcome any thoughts as always

If you had AJhh that takes away a bunch of the villain's flush draws and weights his range even stronger than it is now.

I like the raise pre. 9 would be small in my game. Prefer 10-12, and expect to just win the blinds.
Flop: once you raise, you should be prepared to get it in. If you're not ready to shove versus a 3!, just call the donk lead.
I like raising this bc you either have the best hand or the best draw but you're hand is a little tricky. If the flush card comes, does he have a bigger flush? If the flush misses, is J with a weak kicker good?
You raised, he three bet. I know we're not looking to label things "standard" but with top pair and a flush draw, heads up, getting it in is probably not a bad play.
His three bet is really big though. You made it 37, he raised 75 on top, close to a pot size raise. You mentioned you're read less. It would be good to have some sense as to whether this is more likely to be a draw or TPTK toe hand or if he's scared with a set.
Hard to put him on a set. Just doubt he'd play it so big so fast. He could have an over pair with a heart, in which case, you're in decent shape with 14 outs.
You don't have a big stack, so I'd shove to his 3!. If you were both deeper, flat call the flop donk bet.

Shoving here as you have a ton of equity against literally every hand in his range except sets, and he only has 6 potential combos of sets. It is a high variance line though and shows why calling the donk was probably the best move. Preflop could go either way but hard to make this raise if you are truly read less. Want to be targeting fit or fold type players with raises like these.

Thanks for the thoughts and advice guys. When villain 3 bets me, I think I can assume that I'm presently beat and on tanking, felt that villains range mostly polarised less on single pair hands or even 2 pair but more like sets being fast played for fear of FD. I agree with 'jamitontheriver' in that it is much higher variance. I'm wondering whether shoving my remaining stack 165 into 169 pot is at least +ev? I haven't done the calculation as yet but Obv folding has 0 ev. Could we ultimately argue that because it's a close decision that the only difference here is folding produces less variance than shoving?

No, that would be incorrect. The math is all that matters here. The magnitude of a mistake may be minimal in a close spot (because it won't be terribly -EV) but in the end math is math.

Thanks, then does the maths mean shoving is +ev here?

That would depend on the villain's range.

For this range?

include some AhXh in there, KQhh makes sense (fd+overs)

Pre is whatever

Flop raise is bad, 4b shoving is horrendous and I don't think it's even close - near Zero FE, worst he can have that were beating has at least 10 outs (SFDs And AxKxQxhh). Plus, at 1-2 Im leaning more toward V donk bet as value given Texture with you as PF aggressor - Jx bottom, J7, sets, QQ+ that didn't 3b pre that V is unable to ck. I'd be awfully comfortable playing my pair+FD IP against that range and eval turn.

Thanks for the feedback. Is the flop raise bad given our precise hand as opposed to AJhh? Or generally people semi bluff raise less in cash as opposed to mtt? Assuming 0FE, if we had v covered and stacks were deeper, a shove here would have some FE vs villains weaker value range whilst keeping V drawing range in?i am thinking based on feedback that were at best flipping with weak value range or at worst getting it in with little equity, ie vs AJhh?

Live players hate to fold with any equity. I learned this the expensive way. Shoving almost never gives you fold equity.

2 options,
A. call and value bet any turn that increases your equity or fold.
B. Fold.

As for pre-flop, I am not the pre-flop police. I play a wide range IP as well knowing that I will make better decisions than my opponents post flop. Im not Phil Ivey but Im not Phil Hellmuth either
.

GL

Thanks paratrooper. I didn't consider calling the turn due to V large 3 bet size OTF, if I call then I'm committing a lot of my stack and be in a bind if v shoved turn and I missed.