one more thing about supposed to. re the turn sizing. if he somehow stumbles down this node, the ev difference between betting 1/2 and overbetting is very very close to 0 in an equilibrium (you can view this in the sim by looking at ev / strategy for individual hands). also the actual turn strat (if u use 50bb rake which gives sb a ton of donk sizing options otf), is mixed basically equally between 33 / 50 / 75 / 125 / 175 which means the ev of them are all equal. so if he's playing vs someone who's going to play much worse vs one sizing, it becomes by far the dominant strategy to use that sizing instead. (here u r calling down every single bluff catcher bc he didn't overbet). you're hyper focusing on idk fractions of a bb mistakes instead of thinking through the hand imo

When I see the call pre, donk flop action in this hand with the given player profiles, on average I think SB has an ace or better, which could be tp+FD depending on the suits. It could also be a combo draw like Q9cc but that comprises a small portion of his range.
As such I would call the flop, probably fold turn.

Actually, with most of the hands I post here, most people disagree with my decisions, which is pretty much what I expect. I post them to see what other people's reasoning would be. Whether it's "GTO says this," or "my experience is that," or "logically your line doesn't make sense," it's all good.

I'm never looking for anyone to cheer me up or pat me on the back. If my decisions were "standard", there wouldn't be any reason to post the hand, whether I won or lost.

As for the charts - they weren't for online only, and like I said, I don't know of any charts that are solutions for a SB flatting range behind a CO open over a MP limp, so I was trying to figure out a reasonable range a good player in the SB would want to flat call and play multi-way OOP.

What you call arguing, I just see as robust discussion. I'm opening myself up for others to critique my decisions, and the logic behind them.

Against most decent players, I would have folded turn, albeit, I would have thought about it, and wondered if I was making a bad fold, simply because V's line is so strange overall.

I think he could have some J9 and T9 in his range, too, but I think all his 3-barrel bluffs are those 1P + a draw hands, especially those with a K or Q kicker, blocking my KQ combos.

My thinking on the turn was that if he decided to donk-lead flop with any of those hands, he'd have to keep barreling the turn. I also thought any of his Ax holdings would just be a check-call from the flop.

I'll raise donk-leads from weaker players a lot, for value or as a bluff. It crossed my mind for half a second on the flop, but I was thinking he either had KQ, or he'd slow down on a future street with a worse value hand, or he had a hand similar to but worse than mine, or I might improve with a Q, so bluff-raising didn't seem to have much value.

The thing about donk-leading multi-way is that it's usually done to protect vulnerable hands or set one's own price for a draw on low-to-middling dynamic boards. This flop was the opposite. KQ didn't need any protection and could just check-call, so it seemed like he was either drawing to a flush or trying to protect 1P + a draw against me drawing to a flush.

So, as the PFR, on a flop like this, facing an MP limper and a flat call from either of the blinds, I'd expect a c-bet to take the pot down on the flop a lot. If I c-bet and get called, I'd be putting opponents on the same sort of range I was giving V here - flush draws, 1P + a draw, and some weak top pairs.

I think this board smashes the PFR's range. I have all the straights, sets, 2P and strong TP's, so a c-bet seems almost mandatory with the FDFD on board. But if I get called, I'd probably check-back most turns, and look to either improve on the river, or bluff-catch, or just give up and fold the weaker parts of my range to major aggression.

If I got check-raised by a good opponent on this flop, I'd find that as surprising as V's donk-lead, for the same reasons - I'd have expected V to 3B pre with almost every, if not every hand that flops huge on this board. If I got check-raised by a bad opponent who defends the SB too wide, I'd insta-fold KJ here.

A good opponent might flat the sb with hands like AT, AJ, KQ, TJ etc to keep in the fish as opposed to playing oop against you in a bloated pot with a marginal hand. And they could check raise all those hands (maybe not bottom 2). Or as in this case they could donk and put the fish in a bad spot.

This is pretty much every docvail post.

Wrong reads, contradictory hindsight analysis, and defensiveness despite response consensus. All with 500 words or more.

We don’t need book chapters explaining your thought process when things are much simpler and your initial read misled you.

Call if he’s bluffing. Fold if he’s got it. Simple.

He bet a little more than 1/2 pot on flop and turn, and 2/3 pot on river.

Simply flatting pre and donking flop multi-way is a strange line. Betting 1/2 pot on the flop adds to the strangeness. It's not small enough to induce a raise for value or as a bluff. It's really only enough to fold out under-pairs and SC's that just completely whiffed.

My range is uncapped. When I call flop, if I'm folding out all my under-pairs and SC's that just whiffed, my range starts to become weighted towards hands that can call a bigger bet - straights, sets, 2P, and 1P + a draw.

Meanwhile, the FDFD is still out there, so I'd think it would make sense for him to size up on the turn, to get value from the stronger hands in my range, and charge my draws, or to get me to fold more of my range if he was bluffing.

If he bet 2/3 pot or more on turn, I'd be expecting a river jam, so I would have folded turn. But when he only bets 1/2 pot on turn, it lets me get to the river with more hands. I was expecting him to either give up and check, or continue barreling, but didn't know what size to expect.

He did play his hand perfectly against me, taking the sizing he did. His sizing on flop and turn didn't make much sense, so on the river I was in the blender, trying to figure out what his range looked like, and if he had enough bluffs for me to call, getting 2.5 to 1. Anything smaller and I would have snap-called. Anything larger and I'd have been more likely to fold.

I hero-called. Seemed like a reasonable spot. He got max value from my exact hand. His line would have missed value from all my 2P or better, and all my worse 1P. I said "nice hand" and moved onto the next one. I hope to see him again, so I can ask him what his thought process was.

Never talk strategy. When they ask me I just pretend to be clueless or agree with what they are claiming.

Oh yeah, sure, good play, unlucky.

It seems like a board that hits your range as a pfr and the limper might also have a piece. The half pot donk bet is not as threatening as other possible pot building lines (c/r flop or turn; c/c flop then donk turn) and it grows the pot reliably vs checking and risking a check behind
What he's probably hoping is you raise somewhere...you have all the sets, two pair, AK/AQ. And the limper could be trapped in between for an extra bet or two.
If you have a pp or some sc you don't put much money in otherwise. This seems like an ok line on this board

Life's too short to be angry about something someone I don't know said on the internet. I ain't mad at nobody. We're good.

Fair criticism, one others have also made, and likely to be true often enough. To be fair, I have made some pretty amazing hero calls or hero folds that turned out to be correct, but my reliance on reads does lead me into some tough spots that I could easily avoid if I was taking opponents' actions at face value more.

Yes, all true. Starting from his flop donk, I was trying to figure out how often he'd be donk-leading vs check-calling / check-raising, with donk-leading seeming like a very strange line, more indicative of a bluff than thick value.

Meh, most of my circle of poker friends were originally unknowns I played against. I think there's value in being friendly with other regs, and understanding how they approach the game.

It turned out to be the perfect line against me, with my exact hand.

I think it's really just an ok line, not a great line, against my entire range. I'd think most good players would check-call flop and check-raise turn, to maximize value against my entire range, with such a strong hand on such a static board.

The recent thread about GTOW's multi-way solutions highlights the variability of multi-way pots, and makes it a bigger challenge to figure out what adjustments opponents are making. I'd never been in a spot like this one, so I was trying to figure out what my response to my opponent's bet was supposed to be on each street.

When he starts with a donk-lead, my thinking was that he'd have to barrel turn with all the semi-bluffs in his range, but that he might give up or barrel off on the river. So once I decided to call the flop, I figured I was committed to calling any turn bet that was less than 2/3 pot.

Raising only crossed my mind briefly on the flop. By the river, I was figuring out that when he donks flop, I really don't have any raises unless the turn brings in the flush draw, so his line would be good for all the semi-bluffs in his range. Otherwise, if he just checked to me on flop, I could c-bet flop and over-bet turn, and he'd have to fold all but his strongest hands.

It was really very well played by V. He owned me.

I'm curious to hear from the solversavvy guys if this is indeed a flop we should cbet near 100%, 3way or headsup. Because I wouldn’t, but my decisions in these matters aren't necessarily based on solid theoretical knowledge tbh. I would mostly check behind here, probably with everything that misses and with most of my pairs and pair+draws too, including top pairs.

My understanding of “theory” is not as well-worn as some others on here but I’m pretty sure this type of board is a c-bet. We are uncapped and can have all sets and Broadway and at worst two of the three 2 pair combos. Anyone who is calling preflop and then considering calling flop is going to have a hard time dealing with the possibility of running into a big hand from us. I suspect this is a spot where we can bet huge and the range a Villain is supposed to have got to the flop with just can’t really deal with that bet size.

no even hu vs bb (which is probably much wider than the sb is here) we're checking 40-50% as ip. whether u can bet everything bc they underdefend or dont xr enough is up for debate

I think it's worth adding that I will occasionally donk on an ace high board when I feel the opponent is straightforward and will often have an A. Let's say a straightforward player opens early in an 8 handed game. I defend BB with say 66. The board is like A62. The opponent should have a lot of AK/AQ/AJ/ATs here. I will sometimes donk here because A) it looks bluffy B) I can name my sizing and avoid him going into pot control C) I can avoid looking super strong with the infamous check call check raise line.

So I would not necessarily conclude that opponent is bluffing just because he took a weird line. If he is good he will show up with value a lot in weird lines.

Then don't check raise turn. Check raise the flop when you hit a set, barrel turn and river, try to set up a river jam. The fact that villain often has an ace in his hand he will bet is precisely why you want to check raise and not donk. If the board is 765 then you can't rely on villain to bet all the time even with his overpairs, so we should donk a lot.

Sidenote here. This may not be a good observation, but here goes.

Is it possible that the V1 in SB is actually a good player who purposely slowplayed his hand preflop with a flat-call to entice the bad limper behind him to enter the pot instead of 3betting your ISO raise to get it heads-up with you?

I am not debating whether or not he should be 3betting you or just flatting. I am just saying that V1 in SB could have a flatting range that is stronger than we would normally range him on.

If that Is possibly the case, then they should make us make different assumptions about V1 SB's donkbet ting strategy than the ones made by OP.

Absolutely, yes. Though I wouldn't say flat calling pre with KQo is slow-playing.

The MP limper adds a degree of complexity to SB's pre-flop decisions. In theory, my CO raising range should be stronger with a limper in front of me. The fact that the limper is a semi-OMC on a semi-short stack should make my range stronger, I'd think.

If I'm supposed to have a stronger range, I'd think SB would want to play an even more polarized 3B-or-fold strat. But maybe he thinks I'm not properly adjusting my range pre, or perhaps he just wants to keep MP in the hand, and would prefer to see a flop with KQo rather than re-opening the betting.

So, for me, this hand comes down to a few basic questions:

1. What does his flatting range look like pre?

2. What does his flop donking range look like?

3. What parts of that range would take this line, barrelling off on turn and river?

With V's exact hand, I would think most people would check-call flop, expecting me to c-bet close to 100%, then check-raise turn on a brick. If I have a set or top 2, that line might get my whole stack, and it gets at least one bet out of most, if not all the under-pairs and SC's in my range, whereas donking folds out all those hands.

I don't think V was worried that MP might donk small, I'd just call, and it would look too strong if he over-called. I think instead he probably thought I'd be checking back rather than c-betting as much, because MP's limp-calling range might be stronger, and I might take a more pot-control line by checking back on this board.

Honestly, the donk lead line after flatting pre was just really confusing to me. Whereas check-call flop / check-raise turn disguises his hand strength, the only thing deceptive about his donk-lead is that almost no one would fast-play the flopped nuts this way, because it seems so face-up, and loses value against so much of my range.

too much thinking. it doesn't matter what you think he should do with his hand, your hand is way too far down in your range to go to showdown here anywhere near pure (its already a mix / indifferent otf facing a large donk) and exploitatively reasonable people don't really run bluffs like this without initiative, even more so on this type of board. should really look on gtow. like you put in a ton of time into your posts and you appear to want to get better but most of your heuristics for spots aren't right and you're not willing to do the work to fix them.

This is what I do on a wet board, but on a dry board I find it hard to get value here since I am very TAG and my willingness to xr into strength just screams set/2 pair. Should I just start balancing with garbage like gutshots to induce calls when I have value? On this board (say AJT23, no draws) if V gets to the river with AK how is he paying us off if we've check raised flop then barreled turn and river?

In the example you gave of donking into an EP PFR with 66 on a board of A62, I wouldn't say it looks bluffy. It looks like you have a weak ace, 2nd pair, or maybe some sort of draw, if the board was two-tone.

Donking heads-up there doesn't make a lot of sense. V is going to c-bet enough, and if he just checks back, we can bet the turn to start building a pot. But if we donk, V isn't going to want to float with a lot of his range, so he'll just fold all but the strongest hands in his range, and basically just go into defense mode with all the hands we could target for value.

If it was multi-way, and the PFR is in LP, yeah, go ahead and donk with your set on a two-tone board, because people in the field will call your donk with all their aces, a lot of their flush draws, and some other non-believing hands. The LP raiser might even put in a raise, which would be awesome.

It makes more sense to donk with thick value in a multi-way pot when the PFR is in LP, rather than EP. If the PFR is LP, and action checks to him, then we check-raise next-to-act, everyone else is just going to fold, unless they were sandbagging a huge hand. Donking gets those calls from the MP players that check-raising won't get.

I wouldn't try to balance by donking with very many bluffs, unless they're combo-bluffs with super-high equity, and can call a raise. We really shouldn't be bluffing in MW pots, because there's so little fold equity.

Yes, I got that. I'm not disagreeing with you. In retrospect, I definitely should have folded on the river, if not sooner. I leveled myself into calling, because his line looked bluffy to me.

I thought the hand was interesting, because he took the line he did, which, like I said, loses value against most of my range, and really only targets a very narrow slice of my range for value, and that's only assuming I'm capable of hero-calling with KJ or QJ, rather than folding those out at some point.

I'm only capable of hero-calling there if I think he's capable of having bluffs, in a spot where most players have none.

Well, regardless, I don't look very strong. If I check call flop check raise turn I am going to look like I have a set or 2 pair.

Also I understand your point about MW but don't agree with this being more effective against LP raisers - EP raisers are far more likely to have an ace. Even if not, is he going to fold QQ here? Probably not. He might even call down with it as our line looks so weird

MW is a totally different game and I agree it has much more merit there. But do think there are spots HU where we can mix it in