1/3: Overpair on flush completing river, Value bet?

Made a mistake in the runout river was 5h and flush draw came in - sorry

Corrected it for you. The raise on the flop is too small. It sure looks like he's trying to set a cheap price to draw, and then you only raised it $20 into a pot that was $80 with his bet and you call of it, or only a 1/4 pot bet. You should be making that at least 2/3 pot, so Id raise to $60-70 here.

AP, turn is fine.

River is tough, and V dependent. It would be an easy V-bet if your flop bet would have reduced FDs from his range, but as it was so small, they are probably still there. If this V is tricky, I might just check back and berate myself for losing value OTF and therefore maybe also OTR. If V is straight-forward, this is a pretty easy bet/fold for value.

Thank you Garick for some good pointers about my early play and also for fixing it. I didn’t know you could do that.

I wussed out & checked it back. I don’t know what he had as he mucked. This is the kind of hand I beat myself up on, I can’t sleep thinking about, because it crushes me to lose value.

When he called the turn, I’m thinking his top pair 8 may have become trips. The flush draw came in too, so I buckled. Afraid of the check-raise that was never coming.

Bet/fold was the play. If he had the 8, he probably raises the turn. If he had the flush, he probably leads the river. He may well have called off with a Jack.

Now, the question is what sizing would be ideal?

Have no idea what happened to my original post and I'm too lazy to retype.

Cliffs: 3bet bigger, cool with a flat or our small flop raise, cool with our turn bet, on river against straightforward ABC players I'd go no more than $100 vs check back against tricky competent or very MUBSY.

ETA: SPR 9 and we offered awesome IO of 32:1 preflop, so we don't actually want to build a huge pot on the flop which could work towards getting stacks in play. So I wouldn't raise large, IMO.

ETA#2: Have to be careful on the river against competent tricky players who are unlikey to payoff with worse but could put us in a sick spot with it. Also have to be aware if we're playing a MUBSy player who won't bet his flush/straight (noting how OESD 97 also got there) on a paired board, or perhaps even be the type who is calling down with KK (and sometimes tarping AA). Otherwise against a typical face up ABC opponent a small bet/fold is fine targeting AJ/etc., IMO.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'd go 30 preflop but whatever

Punish that tiny flop donk with a proper raise. Loads of hands that can and will call (Jx, straight draws, flush draws). Make it at least 50, maybe more.

Turn looks OK, the board pair isn't really a huge deal although opponent can have things like 98hh. But when the front door flush comes in on a paired board and we don't have the Qh, I'm not sure if we're going to get called often enough by a Jack to justify betting here. Does you think this player gets involved in 3bet pots with hands like KJo or J9s? I probably check this back, maybe it leaves a little value on the table but I doubt it's much, sizing earlier in the hand would have you with a much larger pot by now though

Too soon for results, OP. Wait at least 24 hours before posting them.

Actually, it had been 8hrs and I didn’t think anyone else was going to respond - I’ll get better at this. Thanks Garick.

For sure I should have sized up earlier. Not very geo-sizing of me. Should have doubled my flop raise. I was a little confused by the small open & the small donk bet on the flop.

As played, checking back was reasonable, but I missed thin value. A chance to add another $100 or so to the stack shouldn’t be missed.

Yeah, I understand that instinct, but we have people in various time zone, and people who only check 2+2 at work, only after work, etc. If we give it 24 hours, we give the majority of folks a chance to see it and comment, though we'll still miss the folks who log on on the weekends, who are on vacation at the moment, etc.

That's why we say, wait until discussion has died down, or at least 24 hours, before revealing results.

I go larger on every street, check back now.

Pre: I would make it larger 40 - 45.

Flop: Don't give opponent a discount for stupid raises. Make it a pot sized raise - 90.

Turn: Looks fine to me

River: I don't hate the check back honestly. Flush/Straight draw comes in. If Villain is the type of player who never bluffs then i would value bet here, if I value own myself so be it.

Grunch:

PRE - raise bigger. At least $30, if not $35.

FLOP - why the hell is he donking here, and for 1/6 pot?

I like the raise. Not sure about the size. My gut says go bigger, because he isn't folding.

TURN - think we can go bigger, at least pot.

RIVER - some reads would be helpful here. If V is a complete unknown, I think we can bet for thin value, but we're targeting such a narrow range to call that I might just check back.

This guy threw me off
The small donk bet, I actually tanked slightly not sure what to make of it. I first thought the turn 8 may have counterfeited his 2Pair, but when he called the bet, I thought he had A8 maybe. When I flipped up my cards, he looked up & down the board before mucking. Must have had a jack & might have called off his stack. sigh

Noted my bet-sizing was too small & a better job there may have led to an easier decision on the river if we got there. I should have been targeting a jack, but the board was worrisome.
Thanks everyone

Don't beat yourself up. There are many spots that are weird in some way, and as such aren't something we'd necessarily have studied and would therefore know how to respond. It may be easier to think in terms of "what if" or "what could this mean" when facing decisions in those spots. For example:

PRE - he opened to $7 from MP - what could that mean?

Is that the normal size open for the game, or his normal size? If not, could he be holding AA/KK, hoping to induce a 3B?

Our 3B with QQ is completely standard, but our sizing is somewhat small when his open has already gotten a call. When we take that size, and he doesn't 4B, we can rule out AA. and probably KK, but he'll be continuing with a pretty wide range.

When we have a big PP, and an opponent opens for a small size, we should have the best hand a lot, and we should probably be raising bigger than you did here, especially at low stakes, where opponents tend to under-fold on early streets.

FLOP - he donked for 1/6 pot on a fairly wet and dynamic board in a 3B pot - what could that mean?

Does he donk a lot? What sort of hands has he shown down when he donked into the PFR in 3B pots? Was it top pair, a draw, or something else?

Even if we've never seen this from him, would he make this play hoping we'll fold? Hoping we'll call? Hoping we'll raise? What sorts of hands would he have here that hope we fold, hope we call, or hope we raise?

When we raise 3x, and he just calls, we can probably rule out a lot of his strongest hands that might have been hoping we'd raise so he can 3B. So we're left with worse 1P hands, draws, and maybe some slivers of better hands that aren't sure what to do.

But there aren't many hands that will fold to our small raise size, so it's hard to narrow his range beyond saying he probably didn't flop a set or some sort of huge combo draw.

My thinking is whatever hand he has that wants to donk here, it will often be worse value or some sort of draw that won't want to fold just yet, so we can raise bigger.

TURN - this is where our decisions get tougher. Because we 3B so small pre, and raised so small on the flop, he could conceivably have some 8x in his range, much more so than if we'd 3B bigger pre or raised bigger on the flop. So...

What happens if we check back? Maybe he outdraws us. Maybe he bluffs the river. Maybe he bets a worse hand for value. Maybe he bets a better hand for value. We're kind of in no man's land on the river if we check back the flop, but we can evaluate what we want to do based on the runout and his bet size.

What happens if we bet small, like 1/2 pot or less? He probably raises with 8x and calls with a lot of the rest of his range, which includes some hands that could outdraw us, some worse value, and some better hands. Occasionally he might bluff us with a raise, but not nearly often enough to worry about it.

We'll be lost on a lot of rivers, and will probably end up checking back a lot if he checks to us, or folding if he donks into us again.

What happens if we bet large, like full pot or more? He might raise with 8x and call with a lot of the rest of his range. We're value-owning ourselves against 8x, but he'll probably check to us again on the river, and we can just check back. Otherwise, we can decide what we want to do after seeing the river card and what he does, since he has to act first.

When I look at the action to this point, I think checking back, betting small, and betting big are all viable options, if we know what we're doing on various rivers.

I don't really like the 2/3 pot bet size you took here, because that size doesn't really do much to help define his range or induce an action that will help define it. Turn the situation around and put yourself in his place. If you checked here, and your opponent barreled for 2/3 pot, what would you do with Jx? What about 8x? What about your good draws?

A good heuristic is to remember that opponents' decisions are driven primarily by fear and greed. Checking back will induce a lot of river bets, both for value and as bluffs. Betting small will induce a lot of raises from hands that beat ours. Betting large will fold out a lot of worse hands, and make his range that gets to the river more polar.

The 2/3 pot turn bet isn't small enough or large enough to induce a greed-based or fear-based action.

RIVER - as expected, we're somewhat lost about what to do, because the action to this point didn't do enough to define V's range. We could bet thin for value, or check back. Both actions have their pros and cons.

if we are worried about flush draws on turn we should be potting or 1.5x pot bet on turn if they are calling with most flush draws right? like most recs are willign to call their Ax flush draw for a good amount

also when you see donks on flop and you have far top of range OP look to start ! 4-5x+ those bets. if they have AJ or even a mid pair, i assume most of live population will peel a card

let me know if im wwrong by otehr users as im eager to see if they agre or disagree

I agree we should raise bigger on the flop. Maybe not always, like not just as a matter of principal whenever someone donks into us for such a small size, but in spots like this, where there are a ton of action-killing cards that can come out, hell yeah.

If the flop action was more "normal", like it checked to hero, he c-bet, and got called, or if hero raised larger over the small donk, I'd be all for bombing most turns. It's a little scary here, if we think V might be donking some 8Xhh combo that trips up on the turn (or check-calling with 8Xhh in a "normal" line).

The weird flop donk for a small size and hero's small raise sets up all the usual and stupid leveling as it applies to trying to assign both players a range. I wouldn't think the population shows up on the turn with any flopped 2P+ that fills up, but I guess it wouldn't be completely shocking if someone did, after they take this weird line on the flop.

Like, conceivably, V donks small with 66 or 86 (why, I don't know), hero raises, V gets scared of JJ or J8 (LOL), just calls, then fills up on the turn, and is caught somewhere between show-tunes going off in his head and worrying that he's getting coolered by a bigger boat.

Meanwhile hero is wondering what the hell to do with QQ while worrying about A8.

Yeah, V could be doing something weird with Jx, or 6x (LOL), or some sort of draw, but his line is so unusual it's hard to weight his range one way or the other.

I agree doc, it’s often difficult at low stakes to range players because the bet-sizing makes no sense. Often can’t tell if weird means strong or weak. Never any consistency

I’m thinking that playing cautious is probably fine in tricky spots, because no need to let them get lucky if you can grind them down.
Good discussion here

I see a lot of strange donks at low stakes. More often than not they're just betting their hand for value. They'll either bet until they get raised, or they'll slow down and check, giving us an opportunity to take the pot.

I tend to over-fold when they donk big, and under-fold when they donk small. I used to automatically raise flop donks, but stopped. Now I prefer to call once, and see what happens.

One adjustment we need to make is relentlessly betting when someone with a donk range checks to us. Along those same lines, if they donk, but slow down and check when called, we need to have a robust bet-fold strat.