Deciphering this donk jam

This is a great post (even the parts im not quoting) but there's a really important piece of overall macro strat advice here that I wish i knew much much earlier in my card playing life:

Villains shoving range on the river looks like
{X}

That range will also have some spew like TT. The portion of spew look likes:
{X-real_value} = spew range

The problem is the percentage of hands that comprise the Spew Range within the overall shove set of {x} is waaaaay too small or insignificant for reasons stated above (not a lot of natural bluffs, necessity to turn made hand into bluff reducing # of EASY bluff hands people might use intuitively/whatever)

When hero'ing villains you need to realize that even if you have some good feeling that villain has some spew, or the line just feels bluffy, you REALLY need to make sure you are properly assessing that range of {X} and the {X-real_value} against the norm or average say and make sure the spew range is a significant % of the overall set {X}

In other words: sometimes you just gotta let some folks bluff you. Clearly big pots where the math is close require some serious consideration but even then I used to consistently give my villain's TOO much credit for arriving at rivers with a range {X} that was similar to my own (used to when i played a WILDLY loose aggressive style).

But I would also give them too much credit to then play that larger range with a higher degree of aggression due to being there w/ more hands than your average opponent.

There are definitely loose aggro villains at lower stakes games 1/2 - 5/10 but I want to specifically focus on the 1/2 and 1/3 player pool and state that in 20 years experience of live cards the opponents who are prime candidates for hero'ing will be VERY obvious and it won't run close to a situation of: is my opponent soul reading me and turning TT-JJ or TP type **** into a bluff knowing i have QQ and might fold here?

Now this isnt to say they wont show up random whiffed cards or bizarre 2gappers in wild spots - its this:

Range {X-real_value} = spew range

Spew Range must contain MORE than natural bluffs and also have with a high frequency a range of SDV hands (TT in this example), a healthy amount of wild bullshit (K3 or K4 flush card K or not) the A of whatever flush draws out there/whiffed or not, etc etc

That spew range really needs to be a healthy and significant portion and you'll know it because these guys will be VPIPing in a 40-55%+ (If you need to know what this looks like in reality - they're seeing almost every other flop. they limp often. the complete teh SB a lot, they're gonna either be disappearing on flop often or playing aggressive on later streets)

Thing is if youre strictly analyzing frequency of action (which you ALWYS should be doing - frequency of action made that isnt fold/check is the BIGGEST thing to help assess/asign proper ranges) you will run into folks who will exhibit similar frequency patterns outlined above who just happen to be running way over expectation/sun running. they will appear similar observationally speaking.

In a vacuum this is rarely a bluff and without any history or reads this would be a bad call. As far as the live reads go, it's not a 100% science, but there are a couple of noteworthy things going on here.

1. He takes some time to consider his options. This is not a strong read either way and it's consistent with either considering betting a vakue hand or contemplating a bluff.

2. The over reaction on his part - he seems a little over the top in his display of comfort. This could be a reverse tell but I'm not super confident in that assessment.

3. He avoids talking about his hand. He deflects and talks about the board and notes that there is more than just pocket nines out there. He is keeping his value range as large as possible and it's a strong hand statement. He wants you to think he could have a flush, maybe even a straight or just a 5. This leans a little bit towards bluffy from a recreational player as described unless they are super comfortable with speech play.

4. Lastly, and this is maybe the strongest tell I see, he isn't very lucid in his speech play. When a guy is very comfortable, his speech is more likely to be a longer stream of consciousness. He might be laughing or goading you into calling. Someone who is bluffing and engaging in speech play is more likely to make small statements punctuated be periods of silence. Someone who is bluffing may decide that they don't want to draw too much attention to themselves and just decide to keep their mouth shut. And if they do say something they need to think carefully about what they want to say to not give away that they might be bluffing.

Anyways, I can't say that I would have called in the moment. I am influenced too nuch by the results. I might have called, but I very may well have folded too. My natural inclination would be to fold, and maybe I find a hero call on river, but generally I think the strongest rule to consider would be that when the front door flush completes and a rec donk leads for large size, they generally have it. I try to use live reads more as tie breakers when it is close. So maybe if I was there it would be different, but generally I would lean towards folding.

Still, it is a very interesting hand for the live tells and I think there is a lot to learn from. Getting good at live tells is a matter of knowing what to look for and collecting massive amounts of data points. Maybe when you see the same behaviors in a spot in the future where it is closer between call or fold, this might lean you towards a call. Thanks for sharing the hand!

Some thoughts about the river speech. Eliminating a strong hand like 99 is a strength tell, he wants you to be worried about fewer hands. Him facing you and voluntarily engaging is a huge strength tell.

The other two tells, namely saying “well I am all in” implies strength so usually means weak. The same is true for showing either way.

Given this jumbled info I would default to poker and fold.

Edit: What Mlark says above about him keeping his value range wide when he eliminates 99 might be right. Maybe that is another weakness tell.

You're trying to analyze the meaning of behavioral tells from a rando who clearly is overcaffeinated and presumably intoxicated. You would do just as well flipping a coin to decide.

Thanks for this. I was hoping to get some feedback on the live tells here, so appreciate you and OmahaDonk providing insight.

I am still somewhat new to live poker and thus have a very simplistic approach to live tells. I made a heuristic for myself that if I am considering calling with a bluff catcher and the opponent engages in my speech play in any way (even just smiling or shrugging) I will just fold. Opponents in my games so rarely engage at all while bluffing that it can't be a terrible rule, but this is the first time it failed me in a bigger spot.

Afterwards, I wondered if I had missed some more subtle things. I know that an opponent "staring you down" is often a sign of a weakness, so I wondered if that is something I should have taken into account with the way V turned in his chair to face me. I also thought about the fact that V seemed to get a bit nervous midway through, when I started getting more in-depth about what he was representing. Your point about "small statements punctuated by silence" rings very true.

Ultimately, I kind of wish I took a little more time and engaged V a little bit longer. It's hard for me to keep track of time in these big spots, but I couldn't have been in the tank for longer than 30 seconds, and it definitely would have been reasonable to use a little more time.

You're trying to find some type of reliable tell from a drunk, caffeinated rando. In these situations, you should just be resorting to population reads. Any post-hoc analysis on his behavior is simply GIGO.

Injecting some personal experience regarding speech play as a live tell...

Played a hand in my last session, in which there was a possible straight on the turn, and the board paired on the river. I'd been engaging in some in-hand table talk with my opponent, and effectively told him that I had 2P that just boated up.

I didn't have a boat, and didn't expect him to believe I'd be over-playing 2P with a straight on board. I wanted him to think I had the straight, and might be worried about him having a boat. I actually had air, and think he would have folded to my bet had he not flopped top pair and rivered top trips, blocking my potential boats.

The point isn't that we should invest a lot of energy into trying to figure out exactly what our opponents have with their speech play. The speeches are just meant to confuse us. But, generally, when someone is bluffing, I tend to think they're less likely to attempt speech play as a reverse tell, because it's not easy to pull off.

Here, the villain's line looks really strong, so I'd be trying to figure out if the speech play is meant to reinforce the idea that he's strong, indicating a bluff, or if the speech is meant to make him look weak, indicating strength.

The fact that V's speech isn't very lucid may just mean he doesn't know exactly what hand he wants us to think he has. If he has a monster, he might be concerned we're about to make a tight fold on a board with straight, flush, and boat potential.

The "I'll show" remark also makes me think he's trying to look weak, because that sort of comment is usually an indication of weakness, as bluffers want to encourage folds rather than curiosity calls.

As for him looking like he had a difficult decision on the turn, it may simply be the case he was contemplating a raise, wondering if it might not look too strong.

The bottom line is I wouldn't base my decision on the tells or the speech, because it's impossible to know if he's trying to look weak or look strong. I'd base my decision on his line, and check-call-check-call-donk-jam is a pretty strong line.

It's okay to make an incorrect fold in this spot, because we're going to be shown a monster more often than not if we call.

I might have thought something like this a year ago but I have done quite a bit of studying on live tells since then. My friend who is a poker coach got me into live tells more. Reading Poker Tells and Verbal Poker Tells are both really good books by Zachary Elwood I highly recommend. The lucidity of speech when bluffing vs when they have value is one of the most important live tells to know. It is not something I came up with myself. Zachary Elwood goes over this in Verbal Poker Tells. And yes it would be relevant vs an intoxicated random rec. That is probably one of the classes of player where live tells will be most useful. Again, I'm not saying that it would have made me call this spot, but it is a very important data point to consider, not just for this hand, but for future hands where it might be closer between call and fold.