villain was flating 8/8 hands and donked every time oop.
How would you play?



thanks!

If he is flatting and donking everything, why do you raise J5o? How does he react to limps?

good point, but let's focus on actual play. Only played 8 hands, no limping from my side yet.

Tbh i dont think you should - remove the inital error and you dont compound it in the first place.

I dont like the c/r here, the size is too big. Just flat, and reevaluate turn, if you miss, and he barrels again, get rid of it, tighten up your preflop range and valuetown him instead of stacking off a naked draw with zero additional equity vs. him.

the argumentation is not bulletproof callme. for one, if he has a different hand preflop that is good to raise, he might find himself in the same spot, although he didn't make a mistake preflop.

secondly, we are all bound to making mistakes and once you find yourself in the situation where you did something wrong, referring to "well, i shouldn't be in this spot, pre was an error", doesn't help you maneuvring out of the situation.

so yeah, while i agree with limping in the first place, i still find the flop decision discussworthy and would probably just flat the flop, although i believe it is close and i would raise with the J of hearts in my hand.

Ofc this can happen with QKo or K8o too but not to that frequency that J5o does, and in general we just have a lot more options to react vs. his aggression than with J5o which basically is a fit or fold hand post.

When we know he is 8/8 flat/donking than i would never put J5o in my opening range nor would i limp it if i wouldnt know how he reacts to limps. It just shows a certain stubborness to adept to an opponent, costing us money in the long run. We all experience this from time to time, e.g. not quickly adapting enough vs. maniac 3betters thinking, oh well, we can get away this time with 2x Q7o just to get 3bet for the 100th time...

Sometimes you should take postflop play into account when making preflop play. That said I think limping J5o here is a better option than min raising it for reasons mentioned ITT. In isolation there's nothing wrong with min raising J5o, and I wouldn't call it a mistake if he did, but poker is not about making 0 mistakes, it's rather about finding the optimal play.

And as for tricky situations in general, it takes some skill just to avoid those spots, which can be quite rewarding. Although I don't think this is the case for the J5o hand here, there are certain "tough" spots in poker that shouldn't really concern you because it shouldn't have happened to you at the first place if you made the right decision before you got there, whether it be preflop, flop or turn. In those cases, learning to avoid those tricky/tough spots can be much more valuable than learning how to play your best once you're stuck in those spots. Tricky spots are tricky for a good reason, and sometimes it won't matter much whichever way you go even though the decision can be insanely hard. However, avoiding those spots can be much easier and much more rewarding too. But yeah, I agree with you that you can't just say "never focus on it" either.

As for the actual hand - I think I'd limp preflop, and as played flat his donk bet. Your equity vs. his getting it in range isn't fantastic, but you can play this hand much more easily by flatting.

i made a mistake in description, we played total 8 hands, so he flatted 4/4 which is imo still kind of readless!?

i agree, pre maybe isn't optimal, but as played i tought raise was best, because i think he folds mid bottom pair, i think his range is mostly air concidering his tendencies?
i also think he will be 2nd barelling here most of the time?
i like it!
this is pretty close concerning this specific situation, i think ego got best of me
nice point, thanks!

Wait, you are insulting me for pointing out a fundamental flaw that hurts many players winrates (including me - yeah sometimes it helps to read the following sentence) and not being able to handle an answer that might be too straightforward for you but basically says the same as mela and ohly pointed out? Slowly i understand why basically only a handful of people posts advice on here.

hey, where did you notice any insult, take it easy! you are getting me wrong, i said that yes you are right, ego got best of me and you nailed it with your comment.

i thank all of you for your comments, including you, so i don't know why you got upset?

cheers!

Doesn't look like an insult to me?

Hmmm - reading it the second time - i agree, its not insulting. Sorry about that - being sick, having problems making my brain work properly aligning these letters as i honestly read "ego got the best of him"...

ok, no problem i feel you

have a nice time guys.

peace