Quote:
Originally Posted by Dopaminer_09
I've seen the villain in this cardroom a few times. He comes off as not too bright, but if he is a regular in the game, he either has money to lose, or he doesn't lose that much. He has a blue collar vibe, but I don't really know anything about him. He is quiet and sort of slow moving.
I usually bet larger on the flop, but in today's instance I thought I would bet smaller just to suck him in more, given my strong hand, and to try something different.
On the turn he donk bet into me, with my interpretation of the vibe being "I don't think you have anything, so here's a bet."
As for my table image, my assumption is that people don't think I'm a particularly strong player. They might think I am a nit, because I don't play a lot of hands and rarely show garbage. This is 2-3-5 NL with a $6 drop, and the standard opening bet is often $20. I've been doing really well in this game for the last 4 weeks (75 hrs), but I doubt anyone has taken note of me, as it's a big place with usually eight to nine 2-3-5 NL tables by late afternoon. I look like a dad in a baseball cap getting lucky, but the truth is I have been studying a bunch about poker lately and have also been closely watching all players and all the action during my hours at the table. An improvement over prior years when I would go through long stretches of time distracted from the game and just waiting for playable hands to be dealt to me.
Some things to unpack here...
First - he doesn't seem very bright? All the more reason I want to proceed cautiously. He may not be clever enough to have any bluffs here. He might be dumb enough to play a strong hand in a very face up way. In my observation, dumber players tend to play more cautiously, only showing real aggression when they have a very strong hand.
Second - "I don't think you have anything, so I'll bet" is actually a common form of speech play, but its purpose is to convey weakness when holding a strong hand. I've had opponents try to use various forms of this speech against me (I can be very aggro), and not once has any opponent showed me a bad hand following this speech.
It would be pretty unusual for someone, at least a thinking player, to bet or raise because he thinks his opponent is bluffing with nothing. If we were bluffing with nothing, and he had something, he'd want to let us keep bluffing.
It's even more unusual for someone to try to out-bluff an opponent he believes is bluffing. Imagine it - he thinks we have nothing, for reasons we can't begin to fathom, and rather than simply folding his nothing, he tries to get us to fold our nothing. No regard for ranges, or board texture, nah, just gonna raise you off your hand, this hand, like Mike McDermott making a move on Johnny Chan.
Dumb guys don't do that. That's something guy's who think they're smart would do.
Third - If you think his donk-lead on the turn is a weak bet with air, why would you raise? Wouldn't we want him to continue betting if he's bluffing?
Fourth - If he was donking turn with air, he'd fold to your raise, not bet again on the river. That's the part that scares me. This is an insanely strong line, to donk lead on a card that heavily favors our range as the PFR, then flat call a raise, and then break with game flow to lead into us again on a river card that would likewise seem to favor our range.
This guy doesn't seem scared of AK or AQ. He doesn't even seem scared of AA or KK, which is kind of insane. This feels like a flopped set, or a flopped straight, that didn't like the BDFD appearing on the turn, and / or is putting us on AK, and isn't sure how to get max value.
