KT Against Donk Donk Check

I don't like giving up the betting lead when someone donks small. I'd like to raise small on the flop when he donks multi-way, as he's more likely to have a hand he won't fold. Maybe go 3x to $45.

As played on flop, his turn bet looks scared. I still want to raise, but not too much. Maybe just $60, again, just 3x.

His line looks like weak value or a trap. Just bet as much as you think he'll call with worse Tx, and fold if he raises. If he doesn't know what's in the pot, maybe go $80, around 2/3 pot. If he's sticky, go $90.

Depending on exactly how many handed we are / what our exact position is / how raisey the table is / etc., I'd lean towards overlimping versus folding preflop (but I have a 0% raising range in the HJ-).

Anything other than calling these flop/turn bets is prolly pretty bad, imo. ETA: Lol, already disaggreed with by the looks of things. 😀 The SPR is 10 and we have one pear. We don't want to be building a huge pot / unwittingly working towards commitment at this SPR, especially when there are very few draws to charge. Let's just use our position to evaluate what he does on the runout and make decisions then. IMO.

And now it looks like we have an easy value bet on the river. I'd probably go like 1/2 PSB or so.

GcluelessNLnoobG

FWIW, I don't hate flat calling the flop when V donks for 1/3 pot, because if he checked and we c-bet, we'd probably bet 1/3 pot. However, in that scenario where he check-calls a 1/3 pot bet, I think I'd be over-betting the turn. So when V donks again, for less than 1/3 pot, I think it's fine to raise this up, with what's probably the best hand, but one that could also benefit from a bit of protection.

All that said, just flatting the flop and turn keeps the pot smaller, so that if we're going to bet/fold river, we're losing less. Personally I just don't like letting an OOP opponent dictate the pot size when we're the PFR and have a hand that can bet for value. I'd rather approach the game as "how do we win more", rather than "how do we lose less" when we have value.

If V just checked to us on flop and turn, I'd probably bet 1/3 pot on flop, over-bet the turn, and then just check back river when the obvious draws come in. It's kind of a travesty if we bet 1/2 pot on the river and V just folds, or calls and shows a worse Tx that would have called off bigger bets on earlier streets.

It might really be both image and pool dependent. But in a general pool nowadays (where most are very capable of folding one pear hands) plus anything remotely close to a tight image, raising a TP hand expecting to get called by worse (especially in position where we can just milk with calls or reasonable bets when checked too) seems pretty meh to me. Nothing in OP describes villain as the biggest payoff station in the room (where a raising line could more be considered).

GimoG

I mean...V likes to limp and limp-call pre, and will donk on ace-high boards, presumably with top pair. I wouldn't give V too much credit for being able to fold worse 1P hands until we see something that says he is capable of finding correct folds.

Meanwhile, if he's donking with 65, we should want to charge him to see the river. It sucks to just flat call two small bets on flop and turn, and either bet-fold the river, or check back and see V roll over worse Tx.

it depends on the player, sometimes they donk to 'see where they're at' and just fold to a raise. That said, 1/3rd pot is a small bet so I'm probably raising flop and if I just call flop I'm raising turn. Problem is if I raise I feel like I need to check back one street. I think if you bet/fold 60 OTR you got the maximum.