$0.02/$0.05 NL 6max Zoom on Ignition, so no previous reads.

Villain (UTG+2, $7.15) opens to $0.17.
Hero (BB, $10.98) calls with AdJd.

Flop: 3sAh6s.
Hero bets $0.30, villain raises to $1.01, hero calls.

Turn: 5d.
Hero checks, villain bets $1.34, hero calls.

River: 9h.
Hero bets $3.61, villain calls.

It seems obvious to me that I made some mistakes here, but I'm still pretty green to NLHE and don't really have a good sense of what should have guided me and what I would do differently for different villain actions. I realize I should have been very suspicious of the flop raise, and that betting the river was pretty stupid as few worse aces would have called something like that, not much beyond that.

why did you donk flop?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Any info on villain?

A good player might be raising the flop with a set, two pair or even a flush/straight draw.
A bad player is probably only raising with a set and two pair.

The large bet sizing on the turn & river should give some indication that villain is holding a decent hand.
In general, the larger the bet sizing, the better the hand.

Calling pot sized bets on the turn & river with TP is going to lose you a lot of pots.


I think we need to call the flop raise & turn bet here.

River is a though decision, a lot of draws miss, so villain could easily be bluffing.
Without any info on villain I'd fold here though.


Very hard to say anything on this hand without any info on villain.

What if I told you he had a better hand than AJ 17 times out of 20, would you need to know if he had it this particular time?

Just x/c flop, x/c turn, river depends on the opponent as you just have a bluff catcher.

Why did you donk flop ? AP I think just fold river

Stop donking from the BB. Villain literally never has a worse ace on the river since if he for some reason raised your flop donk with a worse ace than AJ he would check behind on the turn.

This is a x/c, x/c, x/decide type of spot. You have a good bluffcatcher since you dont block any of the spade draws and if theres any board the micro players love to bluff on its A high ones.

Didn't catch the donk, yeah don't do that until you know what you're doing.

Call down is better than v x/r but you lost the right to get a good grasp of his strat by donking. Some people spaz on advantageous flops/runs where you have no business, some don't.

Fold to flop-raise. We are even more behind on the turn because villian takes the betting lead even after we donked the flop. Fold turn is minimum in this case. I think a better play would be to c/c flop and c/f turn.

Hey, someone down rated my comment. Is my line wrong here? This is c/c flop, c/c turn? I stated c/c flop and c/fold turn because from what I've read, most villians rarely double barrel without a strong hand.

OP, please explain why you donked, lead out with a bet, on the flop.

Actually I think the river donk is even worse.

what is down rating?

I think he accidentally put the thumbs down and thinks one of us people did it .

LMAO. I think so too

That´s actually hilarious.

I was blindly thinking to just bet for value (NLHE beginner coming from LHE), didn't actually consider what worse hands would call and didn't put any reasonable effort into reading villain. In hindsight, I didn't really know what I was doing.

Thanks all for the advice. Seems like the flop/turn action isn't *that* obvious but I have a better way to think about this type of situation next time. I agree w/ Yeodan it's a bit hard to tell exactly without knowing about villain.

You can't always know everything or anything about a villain though. You should have a good baseline strategy. As a beginner, that strategy should include just about no donking in HU pots. Bearer mentioned this above, but just want to emphasize it.