1-2 NL game, only been playing for 30 mins or so. Relevant history with villain: I 3-bet his $10 open 10 minutes prior and took the pot with a flop cbet. He commented that he put me on pocket kings. I confirmed it was something like that. He hasn't done anything out of the ordinary. Middle eastern guy in his 30s.

Villain has $230, I cover. He makes it $5 in MP, gets a caller and I 3-bet to $20 with A K. We go heads up to a flop of K T 7. I bet $30 and he calls.

Turn is K. He now leads into me for $60 with $120 behind. This seems like a very polarized bet but I could use some help with what others feel this kind of donk bet normally represents.

River is the J. He moves in for his remaining $120 without much hesitation. Do we call or fold? Do you put him all in on the turn? What does the turn donk bet mean?

Calling seems fine.
Donk can be full houses, or weaker kings.
There are 9 Kx full houses otr, and 6 TT/77 full houses.

If we think that he has K7 in his range he almost certainly has K8/K9 in his range too.
So there are 12 combos of hands we beat, 15 we lose to, and 3 we chop with (the other AK). Getting ~2.83:1 this is fine.

If we think that he doesn't have K7 in his range, then we lose to 12 combos, (77/TT, KJ/KT) but we only beat 4 combos of KQ and tie with 3x AK. So, we effectively win the pot 5.5/19 times. Which gives us 28.9% equity. Getting 2.83:1 we need ~26.5% equity. Still a call.

Thanks ir2m, my main concern is that only better hands and bluffs are betting this river. The majority of players in these games will check/call with Kx in this spot, scared of the flush.

If you think he can have any bluffs in his range, then this is a call also.

Anywhere that I put in a worse Kx just replace it with a bluff combo (we only need 2 - 3 combos total really) and we still can make the call profitably.

It's not a fist pump turbo call, but it's a call.

V opened to $10 in a previous hand and $5 this time. Can we assume he is betsizing based on strength? If so, on the turn he has plenty of weaker Kx, Ax hearts, QJs, 89s

Turn donk is mostly draws and weaker Kings imo. I think sets and two pairs are oftentimes raising this super scary flop so I would cut those combos in half on the turn. Not to mention the 1/2 population is too trappy with their monsters to donk lead the turn half pot with a boat (which is a great play imo).

I think we have to get it on turn. Too many river cards kill our action to get value from Kx on river, and there are too many draws in V's range that we should get value from on turn.

Once the scariest card possible comes in and V still shoves, I think we are behind the vast majority of the time. We beat only KQ/K9 and K2-K6ss, and I really don't think all those hands are shoving. We are getting good odds on the river to call anyway, but I think we made a big mistake by not raising turn, and now we are paying off V for all the draws in his range.

It's tough and I can definitely see the argument for calling river, but the Jh on river should freeze action for Kx, and there is not much left for V to bluff with except maybe QJ/AJ. And even then I think V's bluffing frequency has to go down once we call the turn with not a whole lot left behind.

You know, the villain's comments on the previous hand makes me wonder about his turn bet. Could it be that he is constantly afraid of monsters and had a hand like KT, but was afraid to give too much action just in case you had KK, then when the K comes down he knows he's good and bets? I too wonder when I see these bets but I can tell you it certainly doesn't have to be nutted.

As an example, there was a hand I once played against an older villain who didn't really get out of line. I raised preflop with AQ and he called. Flop comes down queen high he checks, I bet, he calls. Turn is a brick and he leads out, I raise him all in, he tank calls and has KQ.

In this particular spot, I think you are almost never good on the river, and you should have absolutely put him all in on the turn.

Why didn't you shove the turn?

On this run-out in a 3B pot, I can't see any hands which V can be bluffing with here. As such we need to determine his value range here.

With his turn sizing, and the fact that he donked turn at all make it very unlikely that V has a flush-draw, especially since live Vs love to put the PFR/3-bettor on AK. As such, Kx and sets are pretty much exclusively his range on the turn.

On this river, I honestly don't think his range will change that much from the flop. In the previous hand you described he put you on exactly KK. In this particular spot I think there is a good chance he's 'putting us' on exactly AA, and as such he's liable to value-bet all Kx on this river. It also explains the turn donk, since he's probably expecting AA to check back that turn.

From pre-flop, given that you haven't seen him get out of line much, I'll give him a range by the river of 77, TT, KT-AK. Against this range we have 28.95% equity on the river, and require 26.1% to call profitably here. As such we can call profitably here.

It's also worth noting that this is pretty much the worst case scenario when it comes to ranging V here. If his PF range is tighter then he has less KT/KJ boats in his range, and if his PF range is looser then he has a lot more inferior Kx in his range.

Shove the turn. No flush or straight possible, so many more Kx trips than Kx fullhouse possibilities. He's probably not playing K7, probably raising or leading a flopped set, 3 KT combos beat you, you beat 8 KQ/KJ combos. Even if he had like $250-$300 I'd shove the turn, trips isn't folding.

I shove the turn. As played, call, but not loving it.

That's a good question. At the time, I wanted to keep all of his hands that I beat in and reevaluate the river if a flush card came. I've found that I can be overly conservative when pots start to escalate though and this is a great example of losing track of pot size/stack to pot ratios and making poor decisions.