Deciphering this donk jam

Drunk, overly-caffeinated, passive, loose guy jams the river, and then feels comfortable enough to swivel open and chit-chat with you.

Me thinks your Queens are doomed.

I think AA is the worst hand he shows up with.

Pre is too small imo. $18-25, depending on the game.

I understand why you'd bet small multiway and all that. But I would like to get value from other PPs on this bone dry board right now, before they become underpairs. At least 1/2.

Turn is OK, but especially having played a bit small up till now, I might just pot it. Is he really folding JJ, TT or 99? A wheel draw came in so it can still look like you have AK or AQ.

You really want to get to the river with a small SPR.

River, as played, with these stacks behind is a little difficult. Clearly, you are hoping that he is overvaluing JJ or TT. This makes very little sense from his perspective, as he should want AK/AQ to try to bluff, and he is getting called by bigger pairs a lot and looses to 99.

He is a loosy goosy player, but knows how to play poker. So I think there are some 5s, 22, 99, maybe even 44. That would be a terrible call on the flop with people behind, but you bet small and he is loose. I think this is quite a bit more likely than him just shoving TT or JJ because he doesn't know what to do.

Not many bluffs. Even 34s made a pair and might just hope to showdown v AK.

Raise bigger pre.

Think I'd prefer a check-back or a bigger bet on the flop. The 1/3 pot c-bet isn't bad, but doesn't seem to accomplish much in the way of defining our opponents' ranges.

Would also prefer a smaller bet on the turn.

Check-call-check-call-donk-jam is generally a pretty nutted line. The live tells and speech make me think V might have flopped quads, and slow-played the whole way.

He's never doing all this with a bluff. Seems like a pretty trivial fold on the river.

Thanks for the feedback.

I can't disagree with the pre-flop sizing point. Ending up four ways here kinda sucks. As far as the flop sizing, I tend to default to 1/3 in these multiway spots (and maybe particularly on paired boards) but could see that being a mistake at such a passive table. Turn, I kinda wish I chose a size like 85 that would have set up a geometric river jam, but again, I don't often find these bigger sizes on paired boards, which could be a mistake.

I had a strong read on the turn that he had a middling pocket pair (maybe 88 - JJ) and knew he was behind, which is part of why I was so surprised to see him jam river. I did not think he was overvaluing a worse hand. I also don't know how much 4x this particular player has in general, but it could be possible. Other potential bluffs could be a hand like AThh that turns a combo draw and then goes for the kamikaze river jam? There is also always the possibility of a player turning a middling pocket pair into a bluff (particularly with a spade) but the sizing is sooo big for that...

Check back on flop is interesting, and def the line I would have taken if it was 542ss instead of 552ss.

Once it goes HU to the turn, you don't want to play for stacks against this guy? Or would you want to bet small on turn and then giant on river?

1. You haven't seen any significant showdown hands of his.
2. You don't have the nut advantage.
3. Your range advantage gets smaller with every card dealt.

So, "No."

Sorry all, I realized there is a typo in the OP -- the flop is 5s 5h 2s and the turn is 4h, double flush draw. The front door flush draw completes on the river.

i think having a default line of checking back all boards that are not AA or KKx as the PFR with 100% of your range is a good idea.

keep the pot small which is what you want on a paired board

villains reveal their hand strength on the turn.

when OOP im guessing you have to cbet more, like include QQ and JJx boards, but im not sure.

Fold. Solely off the table talk, his range is exactly straights

in my experience this speech is the nuts.

400 bb's deep i dont think im playing for stacks unless the guy is an absolute blaster whose post flop decision tree only has 1 path towards GII.

as described somewhat loose bad reg doesnt fit this mold.

yes he's capable of bluffs.
yes he's capable over valuing a weaker hand.

but this player type isnt the agro blaster type who shoves without something serious unless you have empirical evidence otherwise.

i love lookin folks up and I'd say I definitely had a bit of a leak of being overly optimistic in that area as well as under estimating (or over estimating depending on your POV) my opponent's ranges and willingness to pursue max FE in spots. the player you can GII for 400bbs here does exist but is a little more rare these days Ive noticed but they will also be a LOT more easy to spot where you wouldnt be confused in ANY way and give a description of loose passive.

flop and turn are great for QQ but dude either outflopped you or turned it. and if he is passive id lean towards FH especiality given hollywood on turn when more draws land (deciding if he can raise the FH for value is what i'd say is most likely but easily a straight still too etc)

i've never seen anyone agonize over making a call and then jamming all in without ever having the nuts

This is surprising because I would have almost the opposite approach, cbetting waaay more in position (including most paired boards) and checking almost my entire range OOP to multiple people. Certainly I would not be bombing the turn if I was called in all four spots on the flop, but once it gets HU with the player who likely has the tightest range, I wanted to go for gold.

These are fair points and I certainly wasn't planning to rifle in my chips on every single river (in all honestly I was probably checking back on the 9s.) My thought process in these spots IP is that I want to retain the flexibility to shove on a pure brick (or, in a perfect world, a 5 or Q) but perhaps I should be thinking more about pot control in a spot where my opponent can have some boats and I admittedly can't.

My random thoughts:

1. We're off the rails from pre-flop, when this guy flats your BTN open in the SB, rather than playing raise or fold. I'd think he'd 3B if he had a decent hand, so the flat call compresses his range to PP's looking to set-mine, and SC's. This flop hits the pre-flop callers' ranges more than ours as the PFR.

2. When he's cold-calling all our ISO's, I'd think he's doing so with a fairly wide range. In conjunction with the point above, it's going to be hard to range this guy effectively, but if we give him a range of almost any two cards, this board hits him often enough to proceed with caution.

3. We don't just need to worry about V in the SB. We have two limpers to think about. Anyone could show up here with 5x or 22 when they limp-call (or in V's case, cold-call). Any of our opponents could be going for a check-raise on the flop. Betting small invites check raises, both for value, and with bluffs.

4. Our over-pair is very unlikely to improve, whereas our opponents' straight and flush draws have 8-9 outs or more (hands like A3ss / A4ss have 15), such that we probably don't want to start bloating the pot by c-betting the flop, and would prefer to check back, to see what our opponents want to do on the turn. Odds are, if someone flopped a big hand, they'll bet big on the next street. If they're on a draw, they may start a bluff. Checking back the flop keeps the pot small, allowing us to continue on more turns.

5. If we are going to bet the flop, I'd think we'd want to bet big, not small, because we're not range-betting on this flop texture. We're trying to get max value and protection before the turn completes any draws. If we bet big and get called, we can narrow our opponent's range to strong hands and strong draws, whereas betting 1/3 pot allows our opponents to continue wider. If we bet big, odds are they'll check to us again on the turn, and we can just check back.

As for your read on V - the salient points are that he's playing loose-passive pre, but we haven't seen enough showdowns to draw any conclusions about what his leaks may be. If we haven't seen him over-bluffing, or over-playing thin value, I wouldn't want to over-commit to our hand on this board texture.

I'm not looking to play for stacks with just 1P on a board that favors my opponents' ranges, unless and until we can define their hands a bit more. The only way to do that is to either check back on the flop, to let them stab the turn, or bet huge, to fold out their weaker hands, but strengthen their continue range.

If we end up playing for stacks, we're probably losing.

I recommend this Upswing article on playing paired flops - https://upswingpoker.com/paired-boards-l....

One of the suggestions in the article is to use smaller bet sizes. However, the examples they give are otherwise dry boards, and heads-up, not wet boards and multi-way.

My general approach to this situation would be to pot-control, either by checking back the flop (at the expense of giving up the betting lead, but with a plan to call most turn bets), or betting big on the flop (at the expense of strengthening our opponents' continue range, but with a plan to check back turn).

Thanks for the detailed response. I am going to add in my thoughts as they come to me. Some of it may expose my ignorance regarding theory and poker terminology, so bare with me.

When I say that V is a "non-descript bad reg" and "doesn't have too many significant showdowns" and is "playing somewhat loose and very passive", I don't mean that he is playing any two, I just mean that he is playing a few too many hands and is under-3betting. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if he only 3b QQ+ AK here, despite the fact that I am iso-ing the button very wide. I haven't seen him showdown in any big pots and haven't seen any eye-raising showdowns, so I would not expect him to cc 65o or Q5s here, for instance.

Correct me if I am wrong, but don't we kind of WANT them to check-raise us for value? I know that you watch a lot Hungry Horse stuff (as do I) and my opponents significantly under-bluff, so I am thrilled when they check-raise because it means that I can pretty easily put them on thick value and either fold or continue with extreme caution.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't often go more than 40% pot in multiway spots. This could be a mistake in the fishy games I play in, but virtually all guidance I see online says to choose smaller sizes when multiway. I don't really care if my opponents call very wide, because a lot of their flop floats will be drawing very thin. I see people float stuff like KJo with a spade, for instance. Based on my above point, about opponents over check-raising their value, I can assume that opponents are relatively weak when they flat my 1/3 pot cbet until I am forced to re-calibrate.

This is purely a terminology thing, but don't we have 2P here, not 1P? This is why I tend to be more comfortable cbetting 552ss instead of 542ss -- there are just far fewer combos of hands that beat us.

EDIT: maybe inaccurate to see that fewer combos beat us if people are limp-calling offsuit 5x trash, but there a fewer intuitive bluffs and fewer bad turns and rivers.

Thanks again, everyone, for the helpful feedback. Happy Thanksgiving!

Eh, tl;dr.

V is "cold calling iso raises a lot" ... we can go bigger, although 15 is pretty big even over two limpers and we are on the BTN and would want to play pretty wide in general.
We can try being exploitive here and making it 25+ but I'm not sure making it 18 buys you anything. Maybe 22 is useful.
QQ isn't even AA, and maniacs are allowed to have good hands.

Flop seems fine/std. against 3 villains.

Turn is way too big. The 4 is bad for you, you probably never even have A3s or 55/44/22 and even if you do have a couple of combos. V might well have all 16 combos. of 63o. I'd be happier checking back turn than betting this much.
What was your plan if V shoved turn?
Also your size on the turn just screams "I have an overpair" ... maybe you find the line with a couple of combos. of AsXs but you still have way more combos. of JJ+, and IMNSHO you shouldn't be trying to get V to fold 77 with AsKs using a big turn bet anyway.

River I probably snap fold without all the BS live read mess. V has roughly every single combo. that is better than 1 pair in range (I can even understand the line with 65o), and would have to be floating flop with any2 so he can bluff rivers by donk shoving to be anywhere near balanced.
FWIW all of the BS live reads just confirm that either V has it, or is a psycho who was planning on bluffing you.

I will occasionally see people play your hand as a $60 bet on the flop and then shove the turn ... and sometimes they win. But IME they only look like geniuses in the same way that the guy who calls 60%+ in SB can look like one when he has 95o here.

Thanks for the input. Most of the "tl;dr" section of the thread is discussing my bet sizings, so I won't go into it too much, but do you bet half pot on the turn if you bet?

AP I was planning to fold to the turn check-raise. Flop would have been a little dicier because it would have felt more like a smaller overpair to me, whereas the flat flop/check-raise turn line would seem to be a lot of 5x/22/A3s stuff. If he is finding the turn check-raise with 87s vs my big sizing then gg.

I may have described this guy a little too floridly in the OP -- my read wasn't that he was cold-calling hands like 63 or a ton of offsuit 5x, more the typical passive reg range of PPs, offsuit broadways, Ax, maybe some SCs, etc. FWIW I think you actually may have played with this guy on Wednesday morning -- he was in the one seat at your 1-2 table (I am Dan's brother if you hadn't put that together). I played with him a bit on Wednesday as well and (spoiler alert) would have made a different decision in this hand if it had happened Wednesday at 2pm instead of the previous night.

48 hours later so here is the reveal:

He sounds like a fun, splashy, HIGH VARIANCE opponent against whom you probably should play close to GTO.

I wasn't suggesting he literally has any two, or even almost any two. I was suggesting we consider that our opponents have some pretty wide ranges here, and this board generally connects well with wide ranges that are played passively.

We want them to check raise when we're bluffing, or when we have a very strong hand that can play for stacks. We don't really love getting check raised with just 1P on this flop that hits our opponents' ranges more than ours.

In general we should c-bet smaller when multi-way, but there are times to deviate and go larger. I would bet small with a nutted hand or a bluff here. I would check back or bet big with a big over-pair here, for the reasons given.

The problem with betting small to let opponents call very wide here is that our hand isn't really all that strong on this board texture and in this configuration. Our hand actually benefits from some protection.

In a 1/2 game, I wouldn't necessarily expect every opponent who flopped a boat, trips, or a good combo draw to check-raise the flop. We should expect some slow plays in spots like this.

Yes, technically we have 2P. I wouldn't think in terms of the number of combos that beat us on 552ss vs 542ss. I would think about opponents' continue ranges, and how those ranges continue. There are 9 sets on 542, and they are all at least somewhat likely to check raise flop. Assuming no one is playing 52o, there are six boats on 552ss, plus one combo of quads, and none of them are likely to check raise. It's not certain that trip 5's is always check raised rather than slow played, because a check raise on this board is just so face up.

There are actually more ways for us to be beat on 552, if we give V every combo of A5, 65, 54, and 75s/53s. Even if V just had 43ss, he's actually got more equity than we do with QQ.

The thing about our opponents having wide ranges here is that we really can't know what cards we need to fade. Say our opponents have every over-pair to the board from 66 up to JJ, and lot of AX combos. The only safe cards for us are three non-spade K's, the two remaining Q's, and the two 5's. The rest of the deck potentially helps our opponents.

That's why I think a check back or big bet on the flop works better than a small bet. We don't mind taking it down on the flop, or buying ourselves a free river card by betting big. We don't mind protecting our check back range and playing a bit of pot control with our big over-pair on this board that connects well with our opponents' wide ranges.

This particular V happened to be bluffing this time. More often, a random bad rec-fish V is going to be nutted when he takes this line in a spot like this.

Playing against non-nits at $1/$2, I think there is always going to be some percentage of the time that we run into random spew. Any time I try and estimate a range for a villain, I will include some sort of nonsense in there. Against some players, there will be more nonsense and against some, there will be less.

There are a lot of data points in this hand that suggest this spot would be underbluffed: the size of the bet, the table talk, the extremely strong line that you took, the fact that you can have a number of good hands here (flushes, full houses, trips, maybe A3s). A big thing about this spot is that there are no natural bluff candidates for Villain, outside of maybe a few combos of AXhh that float flop. So in order for Villain to be bluffing, he has to be turning a made hand into a bluff, which I think is somewhat uncommon. Villain can certainly have a number of strong hands in this line too, namely nut flushes and 99.

I don't think that the fact that Villain has random spew in his range makes up for everything in the above category. You know that you will have plenty hands that can call this jam (you're never folding a flush here, and I think you have more flushes than most players would in this spot) and you don't need to call that much against an overbet. If you have history against Villain and know he is capable, maybe you can start hero calling hands like AsAx or KsKx.

But I think, in general, making these sorts of hero calls against unknown players at Mohegan Sun $1/$2 is going to be losing tons of money. Overfolding against river aggression might be a small mistake against players finding these sorts of "creative" bluffs, but overcalling against river aggression from the average player in a tight/passive player pool is going to be a huge mistake. Allow yourself to be bluffed occasionally and make money in the long run.

Warm and comforting brotherly advice has entered the chat.