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NL Holdem 0.25(BB)
HJ ($25.10) [VPIP: 20% | PFR: 20% | AGG: 0% | Hands: 11]
CO ($28.20) [VPIP: 30% | PFR: 30% | AGG: 40% | Flop Agg: 50% | Turn Agg: 50% | River Agg: 0% | 3-Bet: 0% | 4-Bet: 100% | Hands: 11]
BTN ($20.66) [VPIP: 0% | PFR: 0% | AGG: 0% | Hands: 11]
SB ($23.50) [VPIP: 30% | PFR: 30% | AGG: 0% | Hands: 11]
HERO ($25) [VPIP: 26.1% | PFR: 20.9% | AGG: 37.5% | Flop Agg: 39.2% | Turn Agg: 38.3% | River Agg: 32.3% | 3-Bet: 9.3% | 4-Bet: 12.6% | Cold Call: 13.4% | Hands: 92471]
UTG ($24.65) [VPIP: 18.2% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 0% | Hands: 11]

Dealt to Hero: T Q

UTG Folds, HJ Folds, CO Raises To $0.75, BTN Folds, SB Folds, HERO Calls $0.50

Hero SPR on Flop: [15.16 effective]
Flop ($1.60): 2 T 8
HERO Checks, CO Bets $0.80 (Rem. Stack: $26.65), HERO Calls $0.80 (Rem. Stack: $23.45)

Turn ($3.20): 2 T 8 J
HERO Checks, CO Bets $1.25 (Rem. Stack: $25.40), HERO Calls $1.25 (Rem. Stack: $22.20)

River ($5.70): 2 T 8 J 9

get slightly tilted in these spots because it feels like they just always check back. anything to be done about it?

no

yes

I think it depends on the opponent but, if we lead river it I think it looks too strong with 4 to a straight on board, villain might fold a two pair like J9s,T9s, even sets if we lead river. If we just check he may try to rep the straight himself. If you dont think he will ever bet river you could bet small and try to get a call by his pairs and sets, if we get raised puts us in a bad spot

if that's true wouldn't we really want to lead river, with a bluff-heavy range? not like villain has a massive amount of Qx as a percentage of their range here

Turn sizing from villain doesn't really make a ton of sense to me, as I think this is a spot villain should be polarizing a lot. sizing to me suggests that villain may be (consciously or unconsciously) doing a lot of range splitting, and that this sizing contains a lot of hands that were medium-strength OTT

what sizing are you using and what sorts of hands are you using? I hardly ever donk, but I know they're generally supposed to be a smaller sizing with a lot of different hands at mixed frequencies. Can we try to exploitatively get away with a larger size?

I hardly ever donk. Are there any sorts of spots where you advocate it, especially against weaker pools? Or is the doug polk conventional wisdom mostly correct in your opinion: that it usually just over-complicates the game tree drastically with hardly any EV gain?

I'm sure there are a lot of spots where it could make sense both exploitatively and theoretically, but to do it well can be difficult. Also, doing it well to begin with is going to require a good solid overall understanding of the range vs. range interaction to begin with and to have that you're probably going to be beyond 25nl. My advice for basically every single node in the game tree is keep it stupid simple. (KISS)

I did run the sim for this and it does donk small on river some, but I'm not sure you're really going to be gaining EV doing it. Also, in this spot IP should have a decent amount more QX than you since he has QQ/KQ/AQ all at higher frequencies since you should be 3-betting some of those hands which is why I originally just straight up said no.

In any situation where equities can shift a lot is when OOP can consider having a donking range (so 4-straight could be a spot for it on the river), paired cards, flushes, etc.

I've heard polk advocate donking on cards that significantly change board texture and I think this qualifies.

Looks like reasonable spot and hand to DB, to extract value form his 2p or strong one pair hands.

Approx. 20% with straights and hands like 8x, probably throw 99 in there as well.

why we wanna use a small donk sizing when our value range is basically straights?

i think the theory behind small donk sizing is generally that the decision becomes extremely easy for IP if we go polar out of nowhere

I don't know what a solver would say, and even the clueless idiots who play Iggy 25NL generally can recognize a 4-liner board.

But the clueless idiots who play Iggy 25NL are going to call with worse on this board more often than they are going to bet with worse. I would exploitatively donklead here, betting something like a third of the pot.