Played this hand in my last session. Apologies in advance that I didn't have the starting stack depths, exact bet sizes, or the exact run-out memorized. Please bear with me, as I think the details I do have committed to memory are the most relevant ones for deciding what to do on the river.

2/5, $1k max, 9-handed.

Hero / CO - MAWG. Fairly deep-stacked, solid TAG image, not getting out of line.

Main V1 / SB - 20's-30's guy, not sure if he's white with a tan or possibly mixed latino or asian. Fairly deep-stacked. But seemed to be VERY good, in my observation.

V2 / MP - Loose-passive OMC on a semi-short stack.

OTTH...

OMC limps MP. Hero opens to $25 in CO with KsJh. BTN folds. SB flats. BB folds. OMC in MP calls. Three ways to the flop with $75 in the pot.

($75) Flop - AJT with two clubs and a diamond. SB surprises the $hlt out of me by donking out for $35, without seeming to give it too much thought. MP folds. Hero calls.

($145) Turn - AJT offsuit low brick. V bets around half-pot, like $75. Hero calls.

($295) River AJT another offsuit low brick. V fairly quickly pushes out $200.

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I thought this was a very strange line from a very good 2/5 player. He's basically repping KQ and only KQ, which is mostly if not always a 3B from the SB pre, either for value with KQs or as a bluff with KQo, and I wouldn't think a good grinder would ever play it as a donk-bet-bet-bet line.

I think this V is definitely 3B'ing all his KQs, so even if he just flats with KQo, there are only 9 combos possible. But there again, with the OMC in MP, I'd think he'd want to 3B more pre, and rarely donk-bet this flop that I'm going to c-bet with almost 100% frequency.

Like, when he donk-bets like this, the OMC is folding everything, and I'm folding a lot, whereas if he checks, I'm c-betting everything, and the OMC is likely to over-call behind.

My hand blocks KQ, and unblocks all his missed flush draws. I wouldn't expect him to take this line with his flush draws, unless it was some pair + flush draw, like QJcc or QTcc.

Speaking of - QJs / QTs are supposed to be 3B bluffs pre, and QJo / QTo are supposed to be folds. But, if we're giving him KQo that doesn't 3B pre, maybe we also give him all the combos of QJs and QTs, and maybe even all the unsuited combos, too. Maybe he has some KTs in his flatting range.

If this is KQ for value, I'd think he'd go check, bet / check-call, bet. If this is AJ, AT, JT, or TT, I'd think a lot of those are either 3B's pre, or mostly check-calls, or donk-bet-checks, but never donk-bet-bet. I don't think he'd take this line with 2P or sets, if he even has any sets that weren't 3B's pre.

I realize I could have all the thick value here - straights, sets, and 2P - but thinking about this hand, I realized I probably wouldn't be raising flop with anything at all, when he donks like this, so it's actually a weirdly good line to take with all his bluffs.

So, with 2nd pair top kicker, I beat all his bluffs, and I don't think he has any value that isn't KQ exactly, which I block, and which I don't think he'd play this way. Meanwhile, I unblock all his missed flush draws, and a lot of his 1 pair + missed draw bluffs.

Anyone find a call here, or is this just always a pure fold?

A “very good” reg probably shouldn’t have much of a preflop SB flatting range or AP, much of a donking range on this flop.

It’s important to know whether one of the clubs on board was the A.

It’s ok to just fold flop. Your hand is not very good and short of a non-club Q which may not get you paid, there are no good runouts.

Range advantage be damned.

You gotta shorten your posts bro.

Perhaps our image may be perceived differently by other players? Is there a chance he could possibly categorise you as a non-believer?

In my opinion he can absolutely have JJ/TT. By just calling two streets your possibility of having KQ is mostly ruled out.

AP I fold.

Your post could be way shorter man. Here is the synopsis. A player you thought wad good cold called an iso raise from the SB then donked half pot, half pot, 2/3 pot river. You called with second pair and a gutter to the river. You block some straights and 2p combos.

You have second pair on the flop and second pair on the river facing a tripple barrel. This is a pretty clear fold. Keep it simple. Unless you are making a massive exploitative call here because you have seen villain only take this line with bluffs you best. This is way too stationy.

Villain can just have AJ, AT, JT, maybe TT. And yes he can just have KQ. Also he's probably not as good as you think flatting from the small blind and donk tripple barreling a flop you are likely to cbet on. I would not rule out any of the above hands.

I'm not thinking about this too hard... he cold calls pre and then donks into a board that smacks you as the PFR. Then he bets all 3 streets. He's not overvaluing worse or expecting you to fold very often. I would just fold the flop, lots of reverse implied odds and he has very few bluffs.

He has a ton of two pair, maybe some sets, and KQ. As for bluffs, maybe a combo draw or just a straight draw. But most people don't donk those and even fewer fire 3 streets.

Again, I think you are way over-thinking it. He bet flop, turn, and river. If he's a "really good" player, you are toast. If you thought your J was good, you should have raised the flop.

If you want to hero call, go for it, but it's a fold on the flop or at least turn.

The definition of OMC is nitty -- an OMC can't be loose/passive.

Unless people are chronic donk bettors I'll mostly just let them have it when they do ... it's much easier to see "oh look my hand is super strong" than it is to suddenly be like "Oh, this board is great for the PFR and I have a bluff but maybe now is a great time to lead out" ... even "Oh, this board is good for my range but I don't have much so I should just donk" is not common.

The other thing is to take a mental note that they will donk, and then if they don't my cbet percentage goes way up.



tl;dr I mostly just fold the flop. Then lean heavily to fold turn. 100% never calling river without some reads, and spidey sense tingling.

This might well be a fold on the flop.
I am kind of stationy though, so in game I most likely call flop.
Definitely folding turn.
A played, obviously folding river.

V's line is really weird. He should not have any set, since those would be all clear 3bets preflop. He's repping straights and maybe 2p; cannot think of any bluff taking this line either.

V shouldn't have any flat-calling range in the SB facing a CO raise. Everything should be raise or fold. This is Jonathan Little's chart for the SB facing a RFI from the CO, as an example of his baseline strat:



But with the OMC open-limping in MP, I wasn't RFI'ing. Maybe V thinks I'm raising light to punish the limper. If V suddenly has a flatting range pre, we have to think what hands he'd put into it, and why.

I was thinking his flatting range would be hands that play well enough multi-way and OOP, and hands that aren't strong enough to be 3B's for value pre with the MP limper involved, but might be a lot of hands that would have been good 3B bluff candidates.

So I was giving him all the PP's from 55-99, a sliver of TT, AJo, KQo, A2s-A9s, K9s-KJs, Q9s-Qjs, J9s-JTs, and all the mid-range SC's from 65s up to T9s.

Looking at my own range, with all the flopped straights, sets, 2P, top pair, etc - there's not much that wants to raise when he takes this just-over 1/2 pot sizing on flop and turn. My straights want to let him keep betting with worse. My flush draws, sets, 2P, top pair and 1P + a draw want to flat call or fold.

So he gets to the river with all his value and all his bluffs. And I get to the river with some mix of thick value, weak value, and missed draws.

Most of his value range would just want to start with a check on the flop, not donk bet and go for three streets. But if he was starting a bluff on the flop, I'd think he'd be triple-barreling with a lot of the weaker 1P + a draw combos that don't have clubs in them, and aren't likely to win at showdown - all the 1P combos with a T or J, especially those with a K or Q, blocking my straights.

He has something like 12-15 combos of 3-barrel bluffs, maybe more, versus maybe only 8-10 combos of oddly played / over-played value, maybe less. For me, anything that isn't a straight is basically a bluff-catcher, because he's only repping KQ, so KJ and AA are both about the same here. Getting 2.5 to 1, it's pretty close.

Hero tanked for a minute or two, going through all of the above.

Ultimately, my decision came down to thinking V was one of the few players in the local 2/5 pool capable of taking this line for value and as a bluff, but I felt like his value would have over-bet turn and/or gone bigger on river, targeting the strongest parts of my range, whereas he might try to save bets by going a little smaller with his bluffs, just targeting everything that isn't a set or a straight to fold. I didn't think he'd ever play KQ this face-up.

So, not loving it, I flicked in the call.

Sounds about right. It's the bad players you want to call down here, not the good ones who probably aren't bluffing this river once you've called flop/turn.

i dont really get how you go through this much analysis to call down with middle pair in a spot no one bluffs in. thinking is good but i mean this is absurd punt you're levelling yourself into. can you also elaborate on why you wouldn't want to raise the flop when you have a decent range advantage 200 bb deep? that isn't right i dont think. re the flop if you take a look at utg vs sb 200bb deep sim, if sb leads small (which he is never supposed to do) ip raises 25% of the time.

its going to be alot more effective to just play theoretically sound if the alternative is to start projecting large complex thought processes on people you haven't played much with. most of your threads / posts on here are many paragraphs long about how you would play a spot so you assume your opponents are thinking the same which i think is a gigantic leak and indicative of not having a good baseline strategy of your own. if you think in ranges you'll realize pretty quickly how far down KJ is in an MP iso range on ajt tt, and how large of a mistake its going to be to call down readless vs someone you think is very good who's leading into a fish and you on the flop.

In theory, a good player is never supposed to have KQ here. Against a bad player I would have folded flop or turn.

fold

but more importantly, i think your player reads are way off and you're overly relying upon them - you can get into a lot of trouble with the "he never has x here because he would have 3bet" etc

i'm very surprised to see KQ show up here and I feel like he missed out on a lot of value by donking flop

to me it reeks of him having a set or weak ace and trying to avoid checkbacks where another broadway card comes which makes his hand vulnerable and/or scares off action from lesser hands who would have otherwise called 3 streets of value

LOL. OK. You are the one who told us he was a good player. I've seen good players call from SB w/ KQ before -- not something they would do all the time, but it happens. Especially against opponents they think they can outplay or get paid by. Sounds harsh, but maybe that's what he was doing? I've called from the SB w/ KQ

Bad players will donk w/ bluffs or "where am I at" hands, and they are the ones who will bet the river while still bluffing -- that's what makes them bad.

In theory his entire range is raise-or-fold pre, and he should never donk-lead otf, so the fact that he did both opens the possibility that he has bluffs in his range.

I mean, he flatted. He has to have a flatting range that isn't KQ and only KQ, unless we're saying his entire flatting range is only KQ. How likely is that?

I don't know what his flatting range looks like. I had to build it in my head in game. But I think it's weighted more towards hands that would be 3B-bluffs pre, like KJ, KT, QJ, QT, J9 and T9, not towards KQs, which is a 3B for value, or KQo and JTs, which are also 3B bluffs. AA, JJ, TT, AJs, and ATs are all 3B's for value pre.

If you look at that range, most of his thick value hands on the flop are 3B's for value pre, and I think he'd mostly be 3B'ing them, not flatting them. The only value hands on the flop that are supposed to be 3B bluffs pre, which might be hands he'd just flat call, are KQo and JTs, and I block both with my KJ.

What's his donking range look like? Why would he donk KQo or JTs instead of check-calling / check-raising flop or check-raising turn? Either of those lines is better to maximize value from my entire range. If I had a set or 2P, and he check-raised a brick turn, I'd really be in the blender, and he might get my whole stack if I have a set.

If he donk-bets KQo or JTs, not only is he folding out most or all of the MP limper's range, he risks folding out all my 22-99, KT, QT, J9, T9, and all my naked flush draws. I would have c-bet the flop with all of those, and barreled turn with a lot of them. If he checks flop, the MP limper might donk, and I'll almost certainly c-bet, and he can flat-call, inviting the MP limper to come along.

I'd think his donking range would be more weighted towards hands that have equity to improve, and want to fold out the parts of my range that aren't strong enough to call his donk, but also have equity to improve. So, that weights his range even more towards those SC's and 1P + a draw hands that I'm beating on the river.

Happy to elaborate. First, this isn't UTG vs SB. I'm not sure why that's the sim you'd want to use for comparison, but maybe it doesn't matter.

What hands do I have that want to raise the flop? If I flopped a straight, I want him to keep bluffing or betting worse for value. As we go farther down in my range, from sets to 2P to 1P + a draw, there are fewer hands in his range I can target for value, and more hands I'm losing to.

Even if I have KQcc, Broadway with a re-draw to the flush, why raise, unless I'm putting him on some other KQ combo exactly, and I'm worried about him shutting down on a flush runout? But why would I worry about that, if I'm blocking his KQ combos, and my clubs make a flush run-out less likely? I'd prefer to let him draw to a weaker flush or keep betting his straights while I free-roll to the flush.

If I have KQ no clubs, maybe I'd raise flop, but not always, and probably not very often, knowing the turn will only pair the board or bring in the flush about 1/3 of the time. If he bet 1/3 pot or less, I'd be more likely to raise, but he went just over 1/2 pot, multi-way - that's actually a pretty large sizing, especially for a donk.

I think my decisions were theoretically sound, inasmuch as he's never supposed to have any thick value here. It doesn't have anything to do with thinking that he's thinking the same way I am. I think my baseline strat is pretty good, actually.

AP, when he's mostly repping KQ and some sliver of JT, and I'm blocking both, KJ seems like a reasonably good bluff catcher, when the only better hands I could have here are straights, 2P, and sets, and when all my sets and 2P are still losing to KQ, and don't block KQ. As a bluff-catcher, it's really no worse than my sets or 2P.

If he was betting with thick value, I'd have expected him to over-bet the brick turn, and go bigger on the river, for the same reason I'd expect him to check flop and check-raise turn - to put my sets and 2P in the blender. When he bets 1/2 pot on turn and 2/3 on the river, it looks like he's just trying to fold out my 1P hands, but not expecting me to fold 2P or sets.

This is the CO RFI chart. I'm folding everything worse than KJ here, either on or before the river. KJ is actually pretty far up in my range.

It’s not just KQ. He can have all the 2p and some players might show up with AK or AQ.

Are you really cbetting this flop near 100%? I would check back KJ, but maybe that’s a leak.

i could be mistaken, but those rfi charts are intended for online and don't account for limpers

to emphasize the point, no chart or solver is going to say you need to 5x open either, but we all know that playing live it's not an actual open unless you do that

When debating someone's range, I'll allow that anything is possible, so he could have AA here. But defining a range requires we do some logical "editing" by removing hands that don't seem to fit.

So...2P would be AJ, AT, or JT. AJs and ATs are supposed to be 3B's for value pre. JTs is supposed to be a 3B bluff pre. JTo is supposed to be a fold pre. But he shouldn't have any flatting range pre, so maybe some of those hands become flat calls pre.

How many of them is he going to donk on the flop, and then keep betting, when I call flop and turn, and my range includes all the straights, sets, and best 2P? Doesn't it seem reasonable he might instead choose to take a check-call or even check-raise line, instead of donking flop, and betting three streets?

Would I c-bet nearly 100%? As the PFR, on this flop, if action checked to me, yeah, I think I would c-bet nearly 100%, when I'm last to act. Let's say I c-bet, and either or both opponents call. I can improve on the turn, or if not, I can fold to a donk, or just check-back and take a free river card.

What's the risk that either opponent is going to check-raise the flop if the PFR c-bets this board? What would a x/r be repping here, that didn't either open or 3B pre? How strong can either of my opponents be if they limp-flatted pre, and checked to me on this flop that smashes everyone's pre-flop raising range?

They were the first charts to come up in search results. Reading the description: 100bb effective with an ante. No mention of online vs live.

My point wasn't to suggest the charts shown are "THE" ranges, only to have something reasonable as a starting point for trying to figure out what his range looks like. We can use alternative charts and ranges, but I wouldn't expect them to be drastically different.

I don't know of any chart for a deep-stacked SB facing a deep-stacked CO raise over an MP semi-short-stacked limper. If there is one, I don't know if V would have seen it.

In game, I was just trying to give him the most reasonable range I could. Believing he was a good player who would mostly be playing 3B or fold from the SB, I figured his ad-hoc calling range for a multi-way pot would have a lot of hands that would otherwise be 3B bluffs if I was RFI'ing.

Those are all hands that are easy 3B-folds to a 4B, but have decent equity against my range if I flat call his 3B, and also play well enough multi-way.

That range has way more worse 1P hands on the flop than 2P or better.

it kind of feels like deep down that you know you misplayed the hand and are hoping to get people to cheer you up and say, nah mate, you played it just fine, just unlucky bro and since that isn't coming you're now trying to justify the bad play (which you knew was bad to begin with hence why you posted it) instead of making this a learning opportunity to discuss it in greater detail

ie you're now googling charts that don't apply at all to live poker but seem to justify your play - this wasn't a chart you'd been previously using, if it were then it would be germane to the discussion, you're just searching alibis

i just don't see the point of posting and soliciting advice if you're just going to argue against it

Normal line would be fold turn. Villain just doesn't have many semi-bluffs in range. Even if we give him kj, qj,kt,qt and q9.

Villain also has ax, 2p and sets in range, even though these hands check a lot.

River call seems like a punt. Hero does have the option of bluff-raising at some point, but its not too attractive without evidence villain donks too often, in which case we can punish weaker ax.

Sure a check raise would be bad, but getting check called by A5 isn’t a great result either. He’s going to hate all the cards that improve us. Yes, we can sometimes extract value with KJ but what about T9? We are turning a showdown hand into a bluff.

There are some boards we want a really high cbet % because we have a lot of strong hands they never do. For example AK5r we have 3 of the top 4 hands and they don’t. But AJT doesn’t fall into that category imo.

yeah idk you're like taking a bunch of different things that apply to different situations and mish mashing them. pretty much all of your postflop analysis is just what you think he should do or what you would do as him. both of those are great but are pretty irrelevant to the situation, especially when he takes a 0% node. when i say theoretically sound, i mean solver approved. you unilaterally deciding he shouldn't lead or his turn size is too small so you're going to call river with basically entire range isn't an example of that. i think it would help to look at the solve on gto. while we cant perfectly model the situation, if you look at something like mp vs sb 200 bb deep, even vs 125% lead mp is still raising nearly 20% of the time. the good part too is you'll be able to see how far down in your range to arrive to the river like this that something like KJ is. this gets even more amplified if you decide to never raise anything pre river.

i know we've clashed so im hoping you dont read this as aggressive or argumentative.

its worth pointing out that the jonathan little pre charts are a simplification for 100 bb with no open limpers in front of you, and the "solution" (which already wasn't precise) will be changed when you factor in a limper, 200 bb, and your opening size. the easiest heuristic ive found for limpers are open 1 position tighter than you would normally for each limper

In my crappy local 1/3, 400 cap game, KQoff is never a 3bet from the SB. Been in that game 10+ years and I've never seen it once. Suited once in a while sure, but offsuit, no way.
This line from the villain I've seen plenty after he smashes it. He's assuming you probably have some A2-A5suited and a lot of A-Broadways and if by chance you have AJ or AT, well he's taking you on a one way trip to value town. Hence the half-half-2/3rds size structure.

To me, a donk flop, bet turn line out of the SB is at minimum top pair+ so for me this is a turn fold. And if he shows some bluffs once in a while, that's fine too.

I’m just going to chime in here and say that the idea that he would have bet bigger with a big hand is absurd. You are uncapped. His bets can be sized to induce a raise from you, not just “he would go bigger if he wanted a call.”

Against you, he played his hand perfectly. If you had flopped 2 pair or better you likely raise flop or turn, and his small sizing convinced you to call super light.