5/5 KTs vs 3 ppl

Raise flop

It depends on the player and his range. If he's a passive player, do you think you have any FE against him? That's the question you need to ask yourself. If you think you do, raise. If not, call but keep in mind if he re-raises, you would have to call since you would have too much equity in the pot to walk away from. Depending on how passive he is I would most likely call but that's just me.

This guy is donkbetting tiny into the whole field. His preflop range is very wide. If we do some hand reading combining Villain's wide preflop range with his likely flop strategy, Villain's line for donk betting small is probably a wide range of mostly weak hands that would hate to get raised big.

Is it possible that Villain is donk betting small with a strong hand? Possible, but not likely. Villain is not a nit who almost exclusively has suited Aces and pocket pairs for calling preflop. He is the opposite of a nit, so he has a lot of garbage like 96s for middle pair or T7s for a gutter. He might take some of those mediocre hands and do something silly with them.

Do we have a good candidate for a bluff raise? Yes, we have a lot of equity.

Seems like a slam dunk flop raise unless there is additional info that OP didn't include in his HH.

With the reg kid still to act on the BTN, I might just flat call, to draw BTN in. Maybe the BTN smells weakness and raises, the SB calls or folds, and we call with a fairly disguised hand.

Otherwise, raising is fine, to get HU and IP. Really unlikely SB shows up with a strong enough hand to 3B.

The only thing I don't like about raising here is that the BTN can come along with a lot of hands and make our life hell on later streets. If we raise and the BTN calls, we're somewhat committed to barreling turn on a brick, whereas it'll look insanely strong if we bink the turn and bet again.

The BTN could show up with some better flush draws or just 2P here. It's going to be really hard for us to avoid losing piles in those scenarios.

I think in general a donk into 3 players is generally way stronger than a donk into 1.

He's also described as passive, and now he's leading into 3 players, so I think I just call, especially with Button behind.

Oh for sure, he has a ton of junk with the pre-flop call, but we're taking a bayesian approach here. The question is what's his range *given he's donked flop into 3 people*? And sure it could be say a weak J, or a small draw, but in my experience for these types of players, the range is heavily weighted towards strength.

And just to be clear I'm not hating on a raise, but I certainly don't think it's slam dunk.

Usually what happens:

Flop($105): J 9 4

SB leads for $30, limper folds, Hero raises to $120, SB calls

Turn($345): 2

SB leads for $80, Hero calls

River($500): 2

SB bets $150, Hero folds

And there are many other awkward spots like that. I agree with Playbig2000's observation that we tend to raise only if we believe we have a lot of fold equity. However, in this particular scenario, we are facing a player who leads out from the blinds, and we also have another player on the button who may reduce folding percentage.

Or did I miss something?

We should consider SB's donking range.

In theory, he should be donking with thick value when it's multi-way. In reality, if he's a loose-passive rec-fish, he'd probably be more likely to go for a check-raise with thick value, and his donk bet is either a weak top pair, a strong second pair, or some sort of draw.

If he was trying to protect a strong hand, like 2P or a set, he'd probably bet bigger on such a wet board. It's doubtful he'd be donking small with 2P+ in order to induce a raise.

IMO, the decision to call or raise is less about the SB's donking range, and more about what the BTN does in either scenario, and what his continue range looks like.

If we flat call, our hand looks like a draw. The BTN could raise some hands for value, or as a bluff, possibly with some better draws.

If we raise, I'd think he'd consider folding some of those draws, but then he just ends up continuing with thin value, and / or some devious plan to make our lives hell on the turn or river, depending on the run-out.

If we raise, we're repping JJ, 99, J9, maybe 44, and I guess some combo draws like KThh / QThh. A good thinking opponent is going to see opportunity to steal the pot here, or on a later street depending on what we do, especially if his hand blocks some of the hands we're repping.

BTN could raise J9, or just Jx or 9x, A9hh, or flat call and look to cooler us with AXhh. He might continue with all his QT and T8 combos.

I think we'd prefer to slow-play our hand by just calling here. Let the BTN raise with all his bluffs and thin value, or just come along with a capped range. Play pot control and see what the turn brings. We can rep a wider range of value on the river if the draws brick out and he checks back turn, or bet our hand for value if we hit our draw.

Likewise, we don't mind if the BTN folds and we get HU and IP with the SB. He's going to be checking a lot of turns, allowing us to steal the pot with a bluff, or bet our hand for value if we hit our draw.

I wouldn't mind raising here if the SPR was bigger, but that ship sailed when we opened to $25 pre. If we raise to $90 here, and either the BTN or the SB 3B's to >$200, it's pretty gross. Even if we raise and just get called, there won't be much stack depth remaining. If we just flat call, and the BTN comes along, the pot will be $195 going to the turn, with $425 behind, enough that we can still maneuver.

Let's head over to Resultsville.

Yeah, "SB tables Quad 2s"

The old rule is that donking is a weak made hand, i still think thats true against V as described, ESPECIALLY for that sizing. I raise here all day to like $110, and im probably just gonna overbet jam a blank turn.

When he leads out otf like that into 3 other players, I would think he has a lot more value hands than medium strength hands looking to see where he's at. He can also be afraid of the flush coming and do ppl really think that weak/passive/fish are thinking about the pot size and betting in proportion to it? They don't think in those terms, we're giving these goof ball players so much credibility by saying "he bet small so he must have a weak hand" (if I said it once I said it a thousand times giving ppl too much credit will come back to bite you in the ass some time you have to be very careful).

When he again donked out ott after he was just raised otf, he's basically begging hero to raise him again but luckily he was able to get to the river semi cheaply (considering the big raise otf).

Did you post results here? Or did you post a hypothetical here?

We have a big draw. If he has top pair we are flipping. If we have to get it in it’s no big deal. Just raise it and see what happens. Flipping is fun anyways.

This is not my experience at all. Also if V has a hand like AJ QJ JT hes behind. KJ is slightly ahead. Youre even 42% against J9. Like yes, bad runouts happen, oh well.

This is a VALUE RAISE against top pair. Youre perfectly fine with a call.

raise to 160, shove all turns

Yeah, those are the results. I somehow decided to try raising, but ended up putting myself in another awkward situation.

doc actually pointed out an important thing here: stack depth. That's another reason why I feel that calling is better. Now, he is leading again, and I have what? $350 left. If I jam on the turn or decide to bluff the river, he only needs 25%.

So, at this point, I don't have enough fold equity on the river/turn, and my fold equity on the flop is also questionable.

you dont need fold equity with a hand thats ahead of tptk. (But also you have FE).

Thanks for posting the hand. It's interesting, because it forces us to think about what V is donking with here.

When he bets so small on this wet board, my first thought would be that he's on a draw, or he's got some weak value, because thick value would probably bet bigger for value and protection. He could have some worse flush draws, but other than maybe Q8hh or QTss, what worse draws is he donking with?

Once he calls our raise, I think his range gets much more heavily weighted towards value, not draws. But it's weird that he'd be betting small, and calling a 4x raise. Is he good enough to donk small with thick value, hoping to induce a raise, or is he bad enough to call a raise with weak value?

If he's donking with thick value, why not 3B over your raise? If he's just hoping for a clean turn, why is he donking small again when he gets it?

I'm trying to figure out what his line is repping. I'd think J9+ is donking bigger, possibly 3B'ing flop, and absolutely bombing that turn. I'd think all his draws fold to our flop raise. I'd think all his 1P would slow down and check turn or river.

To @Tomark's point (I think) - the board pairing 2 on the river counterfeits J9, so MAYBE he finds a nitty/incorrect fold if we jam. But if he's just got TP, and he's playing it this way, I don't know that I'd try to get him to fold by jamming as a bluff, after we just called turn.

Either way - he'll have put $375 into the pot, after starting $500 eff. Not too many players are going to be betting that way with a hand that's going to fold if we jam for another $125 at the end.

I dunno what to think. It's such a weird line for him to take with thick value, thin value, or a bluff.

Very interesting hand; now I am obviously results-biased, but I still give my 2 cents.

OTF, with the btn to act behind us, I probably just call: our hand has a lot of equity even 3-way, in case the btn overcalls. I admit things would get more tricky if the btn raises, but even then we would be usually closing the action with a very decent hand.

As played flop, the rest of the hand seems relatively standard.
In theory, perhaps you might want to bluff-shove river at a small frequency, targeting potentially counterfeited two pairs, bu in practice that looks pretty thin/ambitious to me.

It'd be a more complicated spot if villain sucked less and weren't doing the most face-up **** possible. If there's ever a time to be exploitative, it's when a very bad player is donking AND is engaging in some bet sizing shenanigans. Just click raise here a lot. Obviously you shouldn't go nuts because of the existence of BU, but you're not going nuts: you have a combo draw.

Mixing in some calling here is fine, but usually when you're deeper and have more nutted outs.