1/3 AA facing donk

For some reason the first thought that comes to mind is that David Sklansky would have folded here.

Doesn't seem overly appropriate to poke fun at him given that he just passed, so if you read that and laughed, feel bad about yourself. I know I do.

As for the hand...

I mean...my gut tells me that he flopped 2P or a set and he's being deceptive by being entirely face-up, but I doubt anyone here is going to tell you to fold.

So, I guess call, and see if he gives up on brick turns. Maybe he's got JT and is only going to barrel on an A or 9.

Pre is fine. Call the flop donk and evaluate turn. I’m proceeding cautiously.

I mean you gotta call. Think you just gotta go station mode and hope he’s spazzing with k-10 or KJ. You run int kq sometimes or maybe a set.

AA too good. You can raise flop but feel you allow villian to play perfect vs your raise- they folding hands you beat and only
Continue with better.

Donk leads always make me go wtf- it’s an odd play to donk lead vs an ep 3! That is prolly strong. Hmm maybe he’s setting his price with J-10 or checking where he’s at with AQ or KJ? Easily could be set and KQ tho so can’t really help you- I’m personally never donk leading this spot even with kk/ QQ/ bottom set or KQ. Think villian would be better off trying to go for a x raise in that spot or let you barrel off and continue to have a bluff range by going into x call mode.

Call flop and re evaluate or raise and fold to a jam (I think) even tho J-10 might get crazy if player is nutty enough. I say call flop and re evaluate turn. Prolly gotta call turn tho and see what happens on river most of the time.

Call down.

My philosophy of find out early kicks in and I’m raising the donk bet. Most of the time, I’m raising when I get donked.

Raise 125
Classic bet/fold
If called, you likely will have the option of a FreeCard on the turn.

I’m never calling down a player like this (unless I have the nuts), I will confront him and make him tell me again how strong he is. You just get ‘no info’ calling down.

A strategy making the rounds is to play like a maniac on early streets & then make logical, conservative decisions on later streets. Fits my ‘find out early’ approach. Could explain villain’s strange actions.

Doing strange things that confuse opponents can be +EV. If you can’t find a pattern, you have no read.

When a player gets confused, they tend to become passive, & maybe shutdown. Could this guy be manipulating the table? You can’t slip into passivity with the best hand in the game.

Has this guy been winning? Need to know more about villain.

I might make it 90 pre I don’t think he’s ever folding.

This donk is not scary at all. Just call in position intending to call down on clean runouts.

I call here.

I find preflop very difficult with these stack sizes. I typically like to offer poor 8:1 IO, but that would mean a huge 3bet sizing of like $105. But I dunno, with a 3betty image, him announcing perhaps a big hand, and him looking to be very sticky, I think that's what I'd do.

As I say, stacks just really setup a difficult spot, imo (which is why I love playing shortstacked). The SPR is < 5 (i.e. he can make us play for stacks whenever he wants) and yet meanwhile he got ~non-horrendous IO of 16:1 to see a flop. It can create a dicey spot.

I think in position I just call the flop and see what develops. KK/QQ/KQ are all easily in play. But so is AK. Honestly, at this SPR it probably isn't going to matter much cuz stacks are likely destined to go in by the river but perhaps we can get a feel for how comfortable he is with that on certain runouts to maybe change our mind at some point.

GcluelessNLnoobG

The reason you call down is to get him to put in his stack with weaker holdings and draws. You get plenty of info calling down. And nor is that a reason to just raise. I think call down is pretty good and normal.

Taking another look at this...

PRE - a lot of bad low-stakes players will open JJ/TT and sometimes QQ/99 for a larger size, because they perceive those hands as being more difficult to play post-flop, especially when they're likely to be OOP.

Sometimes they're just super face-up and raising big hands for a larger size, and worse hands for a smaller size.

That said, a lot of decent low-stakes players will vary their open sizes based on their position or how they perceive the table dynamics, so I wouldn't necessarily assume too much about V's range based on his open size.

But, with AA, yes, absolutely, I'd be 3B'ing for a larger size, especially if I thought my image was aggro, and / or if V had caught us bluffing recently. I'd probably 3B to at least $80, if not $100.

FLOP - So...if the board was super wet and dynamic, and / or if it was just a SRP where we could have a ton of draws, I'd expect to see more flop donks, but also maybe expect to see a bigger size.

This is weird, because it's a 3BP, where we could have KK/QQ, and the board isn't super wet, so we shouldn't have many, if any draws, and he's donking for 40% pot, which doesn't seem like a protection bet.

That's why I said my gut tells me he flopped 2P or a set and he's just being pretty face up. It looks like he's targeting our worse value hands with a milky sizing. The only other hand that makes a lot of sense would be JT for the OESD.

So, I'm definitely not folding flop. I'm not sure if it makes any sense to raise. I'd think he mostly just folds out worse and calls with better. But who knows? Maybe he gets sticky with worse 1P or a draw. I'd be sick if we raised and he 3B. I think I'd only raise with KK/QQ here, or maybe KQ.

If he's doing this with JJ or a lower PP, or a hand like AK/AQ, that would be pretty strange. I'd think he'd slow down with those hands on the turn once we call flop. But if he's doing something strange on the flop, maybe he just continues being strange on the turn.

I'd like the situation a lot better if he does check to us on the turn. But even then, I'd hate it if we stab at it on a brick and he x/r's. I wouldn't necessarily love it if an A rolled off on the turn, and I'd hate it if the turn is a 9 and he bet again.

I don't like this situation at all. I don't know what V is doing. When we can have KK/QQ, and he donks anyway, I think the most likely hands he'll have are KQ or JTs. If he's capable of barreling turn with JTs, I guess we have to call again, and evaluate on the river.

his range is probably uncapped except for maybe KK. just call.

In this configuration, I don't think a raise can get called by many worse hands.

I was thinking he's calling his whole range besides air.

V was super sticky in other pots

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you mean his "whole range" that would donk the flop, not that you're suggesting he's donking his entire range on the flop.

But the obvious question is, what's his donking range here?

In HU pots at low stakes, playing against recs, flop donks are generally going to be SDV, draws, and air. If he's good, he may be donking with super thick value, but even good players at low stakes don't typically donk with strong hands when HU.

Very often, it's just air. If we raise, he folds air.

What's left? Thick value, SDV, and draws. He's probably folding a lot of his SDV. So his range that calls is mostly just thick value and draws, often draws to the nuts.

I'd love to raise as a bluff if we have a high equity draw. I might raise if I have air and think we can make his better air fold by the river. I might raise thick but vulnerable value if the board is super wet and dynamic and it seems likely he has a draw. I wouldn't raise with thin value like AA.

Again, it comes down to how we range him.

He opened UTG, for a big size. That should be a strong range. We 3B him next to act. We should have a very strong range.

He didn't 4B, so we have to ask if he has a 4B range (probably), and what it may include? He's probably 4B'ing AA/KK. Maybe also QQ/AK. Maybe not JJ, and probably not lower PP's. Probably not AQ.

What hands continue to our 3B? Probably a lot of his PP's below KK, a lot of his suited aces, maybe some Broadway combos, maybe some lower SC's.

What's the strongest hand he can have on the flop? Slivers of QQ, slivers of 22 (and maybe no 22 at all), and KQ. Maybe he shows up with JTs, or AJs/ATs that has a BDFD and a GSSD and tries to set his own price to see the turn. There aren't as many AJs/ATs combos he can have when we have AA.

I suppose he could donk with some under-pairs to QQ, perhaps targeting hands like AJ/AT. That's kinda optimistic, when we can have KK/QQ/KQ/AA.

Obviously he's not folding QQ to our raise. Probably not KQ or 22. He may not call from OOP with AJ/AT. He's probably not calling with JJ or lower PP's.

The worst hand that may call a lot is JT. How often is he opening JTs from UTG and calling our 3B when we're next to act and he'll be OOP post?

It's just hard for him to call a raise with a worse hand. He'd have to be super sticky icky icky.

unless you've given people a reason to call your raise with worse hands (by being bluffy) dont expect they will.

This is UTG vs +1 so it's extremely tight. You can probably go a bit larger preflop as that strong range probably won't want to fold just to a single 3bet when it's a large open. Anything 60-80 is probably fine. Anything bigger and you start to fold out hands like AK.

KQx interacts with both players a lot, in fact your ranges aren't all that different. If your opponent is sat there with AK he will be wary of your AA/KK/QQ just as much, if not more so, than you are of him. Maybe he has more KQ.

His range can be split into three: (1) fat value (KK/QQ/some KQ), (2) scared thin value wanting to get to showdown (AK maybe some AQ and KJs), (3) draws/air (AJs,

Apparently I'm not allowed to edit the post, so.....

(3) draws/air (AJs, JTs). The final category could be hands like JJ and TT that just don't know what to do and bet for the sake of doing something.

I don't hate a click back to punish the donk and make sure AK and similar don't get away cheaply. But probably just call more often than not and keep calling down until we face a check at which point it's time to get ourselves