Mostly unknown villain, loose passive preflop stats over 50ish sample.


Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 44426
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BTN: $13.75
SB: $20.15
BB: $106.95
UTG: $50.50
Hero (CO): $52.65

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with Q J
1 fold, Hero raises to $1.50, 2 folds, BB calls $1

Flop: ($3.25) 4 A 3 (2 players)
BB bets $1, Hero raises to $4.50, BB calls $3.50

Turn: ($12.25) 3 (2 players)
BB bets $1.50, Hero raises to $13


Spew?

Any merit to a shove if he calls and checks the river?

Edit: By "checks the river" I mean "checks or bets like $2.50 or less".

Im not at all sure about the turn raise. If hes drawing which his bets would indicate then you have decent fold equity, but his call on the flop worries me. He could have pretty much anything. I dont know if thers much value in this play if he decides to shove turn, and if he calls again then your in a tricky spot on the river.

I see this all the time at 50nl. I hate it and usually take the same line as you here and raise with my entire range. However, from my experience, they don't usually fold to a raise and if they called your raise, they will probably call you down on later streets. I usually just fold now when I have air and float with over cards or a draw as raising in these spots just never seems to be profitable. I guess its player dependant though and some times players may fold to a raise after a micro donk lead. However, given the above hand, I just fold on the turn. The turn changes nothing and if he is trying to get a cheap river card with a diamond draw, he will most likely still call your raise on the turn. If I was planning to get him off the hand here, I would rather raise a non diamond river, but even this is bad here I think. Just fold the turn and move on imo.

Possible spew, or possible BIG time profit. I'm not really sure which. I think at the micro stakes this has spew -EV written all over it.

There are only 2 things I can possibly put him on given the call from the pre-flop raise (other than the obvious "he's slow playing a set"). Some kind of ace, or a flush draw. He led into you with what seemed to both be blocking type bets. If he did have a set and hit a boat on the turn, I don't see how/why he wouldn't just shove right there with all that aggression your showing. So the only thing that makes sense here is a flush draw or some kind of ace. (Fishly speaking, anyway :P)

Against the flush draw, this is obviously HUGE profit if no diamond hits the river. But if he has an ace, he's going to call you no matter what the river is (micro stakes players hardly EVER fold top pair). It's also possible he has something like 8-8 and doesn't believe you have an ace (or doesn't want to fold) and if a scare card comes on the river he MIGHT fold.

If a diamond came on the river and he led out betting again, do you even know what he has? Did he hit the flush or is he putting another block bet on his Ace? Against good players, this play might work, but in the micro stakes, I tend to think this is more of a spew. If they don't back down to a flop raise, and especially if they dont back down to a turn raise, they very, very rarely fold. Your only chance of him folding is small PP with scare card on river or a non diamond and he WAS on the flush draw. Your probably spewing money. If you really, really wanted to try to take this pot, don't raise the turn.**

**Flat call it if you think he's on a flush draw. If a non-diamond hits and he checks or bets small again, a small min-like raise will be all you need here to take down the pot. If he missed, he can't call anything (unless he makes a terrible call with that 8-8 or something) You'll save yourself a lot of money on the turn because if he was a flush draw or ace, he's not folding anyway until that river blanks.

Try not to bluff too much at the micro stakes and avoid this situation as much as possible. Better for your bankroll, better for your health :P Save this play for the bigger stakes where you can actually get someone to fold an ace or a flush draw on the turn to another big raise. Remember, maybe you lost a few bucks here, but you'll just stack off another fish later if your patient enough. You don't need to win every pot you raise in micro stakes. Not even close.

-Brian

From what I've seen, these "piddle" bets as I call them mean that villan has some sort of hand but nothing partcularly strong. (by that I mean weak tp hands, second pair hands, draws).

They also very rarely donk/fold so I'd say it's spew to do it too often.

Just draw on the cheap if they are going to let you and raise your decent made hands/combo hands. I wouldnt be surprised to see the guy have a weak ace in the hand above (bets more on the turn "becoz it improved to 2 pairz")

Then of course there's the odd person that mindonks to induce knowing that half hte population spaz-raises..

My own take:

I won't pretend to be able to put him on a hand, but I do think we can assume from his turn bet that he doesn't want to play a big pot. He has to expect me to bet here if checked to, so it makes little sense for him to do it with any kind of strong hand. Flush draw fits the profile, silly things like a 4 or a small pocket pair fits and very weak aces can fit (and we should have some fold equity, if he's really looking to play a small pot). Assuming that range is accurate it would seem that a line of raise turn and shove a non-diamond river should be the most profitable. Maybe even shove any non J/Q river.

Ofc the read could be way, way off. And no amount of hand reading can save us when he snapcalls river with 66 anyway.

I think your completely correct here in regards to range and fold equity, and the small bets to avoid a big pot. However, my main point here remains simple:

The fish don't fold.

At higher stakes or against smarter players, absolutely better for value. But if they never or rarely fold an ace or small pair in this spot, than it's easily -EV.

these hands are incredibly tilting, but if he calls your turn raise, stop trying to push him off Ax and adjust accordingly. valuetown him when you flop a hand on him, and draw cheaply against him when you flop a draw. there's no shame in folding the flop to a 1/6 pot donkbet if you have no pair/no draw.

I play it the same because his bets usually indicate a weak range. I make it like $9 on the turn though

100% agree with this. This is how I make most of my money in microstakes. Just fold when you have no hope, draw super cheap when you can, and bet bet bet when you pair. Stay patient, and when you catch anything at all or have a good run of cards you'll stack them either all at once or over several hands every time.

At 10 and 25nl, this always ends up being a6-a10. A loose passive player's range for donking out on this flop is very ace heavy, probably 1 pair aces or better, as silly as that is. I don't expect an unknown loose passive to show up with a fdraw often enough to warrant an expensive multistreet bluff. You won't succeed in getting most of these passive donk bettors off top pair very often before river. Players thinking on that level may gain confidence in the hand on that turn now that they have made 2 pair. It obv doesn't change anything, but in the mind of the passive micro weekend warrior...