Massive overplay or reasonable protectionism w/ JJ?

Whether to raise small or call is debatable, but raising this large is definitely wrong. You're facing 3 uncapped ranges here, so you lose way too much the times you run into the nuts.

Think about what you're trying to protect your hand against: a strong draw like T9 is going to call anyway, so you're really just denying equity against hands like AQ/KQ - all of which will fold vs a smaller size.

Very nicely put. You said everything that needed to say, and you said it succinctly!

I did misread.

Although even against a fishy lead (who might not grasp how strong they have to be to lead this much into so many) I'm still not a fan of the flop raise.

When a competent player takes the massive flop raise cold to the face with the action still open on this board, I'm done with the hand.

GcluelesspuntynoobG

Sorry I don't understand this exactly. There's really very little AQ/AK here, some KQ. Which yea I guess folds to the 45. But making it 175 puts T9 in a really tough spot no? I mean in an extreme thought experiment, if I just jam over the 45 what does T9 do? T9 is getting 38% direct odds to the turn 1.6:1. Not great.

You're getting a lot of info thrown at you here. You may be overlooking some of the salient points, which would be unfortunate, because there's some wisdom to be gained.

Hoping to do justice to it as I try to unpack keuwai's post, which was short but had a lot in it.

1. Raising (small) or calling is debatable.

You have an over-pair to the board in a 4-way pot, but the board texture is going to hit our opponents' ranges more than ours as the PFR.

I don't think it's just because our range is going to have more over-pairs. I think it's because our opponents on the BTN and in the SB are going to be pretty wide, and because this exact board smacks 65s, a hand that is going to be in everyone's range here.

I think that's what he means when he says we're facing 3 uncapped ranges. It's not that none of them are going to have better 1P, it's that all of them could show up with 2P+, sets, and straights, making our JJ a pretty weak hand by comparison.

2. Raising this large is definitely wrong.

If you understand the point above, you'll understand why this sizing is wrong. We're starting $400 eff, and just committed almost half our starting stack to the pot, with a hand that beats all our opponents 1P holdings, none of which are likely to call, but loses to literally everything else in their value range.

3. We lose way too much when we take this sizing and run into the nuts.

If we raise small and get 3B, we're almost certainly behind. If we raise this big and get 3B, we're absolutely certain to be behind.

4. Think about what we're trying to protect against (deny equity from). T9 may or may not call. Over-cards will fold to a smaller raise size.

To your point, maybe we're putting T9 in the blender, but a good player with T9 here may fold when we take this sizing (I mean - we could also have 65 or 88), so we're not getting much value from T9 when we take this size.

If we're trying to deny equity from AQ/KQ type of holdings, those hands are probably going to fold when we call V's 3/4 pot donk-bet, and are definitely folding if we raise any amount, so we don't need to raise huge.

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My personal $0.02 - V donk led 3/4 pot into 3 opponents, including the PFR, and the BTN and SB, who have the widest possible ranges. That's almost never a bluff. Any half-decent reg is unlikely to donk with T9 here. If a bad rec donked with T9, they'd make it like $20, not $45.

That's a "don't need to see any more cards because I've got the best hand right now and want to make sure this doesn't get checked through" bet, not a "seeing where I'm at with my TP / 2P" bet, much less a "setting my own price to hit my draw" bet. With that size, into 3 opponents, I'm giving him top 2P at the absolute minimum.

I'm surprised he didn't just jam over your raise right then and there. Seems like your 4x raise might have caused him to have a brain cramp, which didn't work itself out until the turn.

If you raise so big that even T9 is in a tough spot, then what are you getting value from?

To justify making any bet or raise, we need a combination of value + equity denial. A big raise denies a similar amount of equity as a small one (because hands like T9 will call anyway), and doesn't generate that much more value.

Value isn't just about getting called by worse hands - the quality of these worse hands matters as well. A small bet against a weak bluffcatcher like TT can easily be worth more than a big bet against T9, because the latter is going to get there much more often. So you don't want to bet so big that you fold out all the weak bluffcatchers, and only get called by the high equity stuff.

This is a little hard to explain in just words, so you can try watching this for a more visual explanation:

A fair breakdown!

Or, don't miss the forest for the trees 😉

Video was great and explains a lot but now I'm in the blender a little about the seemingly converse relationship of "getting value" (aka. I want the worse hands to call) and "denying equity" (aka. actually I want the worse hands to fold?? because they still have equity??)

Lets say for example that V in the SB has exactly T9hh. EXACTLY T9hh. And its heads up. The pot is 60$. Now lets say SB donks out 45 with T-high to construct a semi-bluff.

What amount do I raise to, and can you show the math, to balance equity denial + getting value?

He's giving himself 45/(45+60) = 43% so my MDF is 57%...

His raw equity is 32%, so my take is 43-32=11%. If he can get me to fold 11% of the time with a donk of 45$ into 60$ he's at least breaking even.

Assume I only have JJ-AA.

Nvm I'm confusing myself by making it two streets.

If he doesn't donk then 15.45$ is the breakeven point. 0.17B + 10.2 - 0.83B = 0 --> B = 15.45$

If he does donk 45$ into 60$. 0.17B + 0.17(105) - 0.83(B-45) = 0 ---> B = 83.63$

You're over-thinking this a bit.

Speaking only to how I would view this situation, in this type of hand, not trying to answer for keuwai...

You're focusing on V having T9 as a semi-bluff. That's just one hand, and we're assuming V is going to donk-bet 3/4 pot into 3 opponents with T9 on this board. Does V have any other bluffs in his range here, or just T9? Like, that's going to create a super-low bluffing frequency, if it's just that one combo. Let's give him 64, 54, 76, 75, 86, etc. All those 1P + ISSD combos.

Let's assume he is semi-bluffing with all of those. Before we raise, let's ask if we were even planning to c-bet this flop, or if we were going to check, and if we were going to c-bet, what size we were planning to take? If we were going to check, why are we now raising over his donk? If we were going to c-bet 3/4 pot or less, why would we raise when he bets the same amount or more?

Suppose we c-bet $45 and he flat called. We'd be in the same exact spot heading to the turn that we'd be in if we just flat called his donk bet. He might have a worse hand in either scenario. But when we bet and he check-raises, we're more likely to think he's got 2P+.

His donking range is probably the same as his check-raising range here, especially when he takes 3/4 pot sizing. If he's unlikely to check-raise T9, it's unlikely he's donking T9. If he donks, and we raise, it's almost like we did the check-raising for him. Instead of him trapping us by slow-playing his hand, we trapped ourselves by over-playing our hand.

If we c-bet, we're hoping to get value from worse 1P hands and draws. We'd also be denying equity from hands like AK/KQ. It's not that we necessarily want those hands to fold, but we also don't want to let them realize their equity for free or for cheap, the same way we wouldn't want to give a free card to T9.

AK, KQ, and T9 are all drawing hands, and we want to charge them to hit their draws. But if he's donking with 2P+, which seems likely when he takes this size and leads into 3 opponents, we shouldn't be worried about him possibly semi-bluffing us and letting him take a free or cheap card, because it's neither free nor cheap when he bets 3/4 pot.

It might be a fold to that sizing on that board, even though you often have the best hand. Draws are not all that likely with the lead, because there are no possible flush draws. Getting a draw to fold doesn't accomplish all that much anyway.

Flop raise is maybe fine at some frequency, but don't make a habit of it.

OTT: Aren't we acting after HJ? What did they do? If they folded, I think calling is fine here ONLY because there's enough of a "villain is faffing about at lower stakes" factor to justify the pot odds. There's a lot of hands on this sort of board where mediocre live players can go haywire, and you'll definitely see some hands here that confirms your "decent player but not overly good" read...

thx doc

Only because this hand got stuck in my head, and as I was thinking about it, the following occurred to me, which you may find helpful...

Yes, I did mis-read the OP, not realizing that the HJ donked, we raised in the CO, and the SB called, then it was the SB who jammed, not HJ. However, we should be very worried when the SB calls a donk-bet and a raise from the PFR on the flop, and then donk-jams turn.

Regardless, before SB calls flop and jams turn, we're only looking at your flop raise over the HJ's donk. Our hand-reading should really be focused on the donking range that makes the most sense here.

You were thinking a lot about T9, which is an 8-out OESD. I was saying anyone could show up with 65s for the flopped straight, and that V could also be value betting 2P+/sets.

But there are a lot of 1P + ISSD combos that include a 6 or 5, that could be seen as hybrid value-bluffs here. Even if we have an over-pair to the board, those hands all block the flopped nuts, have some showdown value, and have 9 outs to improve to 2P, trips, or a straight.

There are 18 combos of those hands - 86s (3), 85s (3), 76s (3), 75s (3), 64s (3), 54s (3). Adding the 8 OESD combos of T9s and 96s, there are 26 combos of 1P + ISSD or OESD's we're beating on the flop, versus 15 combos of 2P/sets/straights that are crushing us.

If we think V is capable of having a lot of bluffs here (and if he's balanced, he should have a lot, given this huge bet sizing), and that he donks 3/4 pot with every hand in the above range, his range is 63% bluffs, 37% value - almost 2:1 bluffs to value.

If the action had checked to us, we could c-bet to get value and deny equity from that entire range, and we'd only be worried about those 15 combos that beat us if he check-raised.

But if we DON'T think V is capable of taking this line with all those hands, then we can see how his donk-bet range becomes unbalanced, and more value-oriented.

If he just donks 1P + ISSD, but checks his OESD's, and value-bets his made hands, it's 55% bluffs / 45% value. If he only donks his OESD's for bluffs, value-bets his made hands, and checks with all his 1P + ISSD's, it's 35% bluffs / 65% value. If he only value-bets his made hands, and only bluffs with T9s, it's 21% bluffs, 79% value.

In theory, he shouldn't be slow-playing strong made hands when he's OOP and multi-way on this dynamic-middling board. He should be fast-playing by donk-leading (good article on donk-lead strat on upswi...).

I don't know how likely it would be that V would be balanced enough to be donk-bluffing with just an OESD or donk-betting a weak 1P + an ISSD into 3 opponents, for a 3/4 pot sizing, but if we think V is capable, and if we think he's trying to be balanced, it's worth considering the proper response with our over-pair.

We want to just call with JJ, to keep all his bluffs in, not raise. Raising forces him to fold most or all of his bluffs (and we see the HJ folded), and just continue with his thick value (like the SB did).

But considering how unlikely it is that our opponents are going to be balanced enough (have enough bluffs) when they donk 3/4 pot into 3 opponents on this flop texture, we should probably assume he's unbalanced, and has more thick value than bluffs, and proceed cautiously - meaning we should be raising even less frequently.

I have to wonder what the SB would have done on the flop if we just flat called the HJ's donk. I'm guessing he would have check-raised huge, the HJ would have folded, and we might have been able to get away from our hand right then and there.

What's funny is that the SB should have donked here. If he bet 1/3 pot or less, he probably would have gotten the HJ to call, and you to raise.

If he only has T9 then you would jam all the time, because your hand is the nuts.

The reason why we can't do that in the actual hand is because V + the other players can all have 2p+. This means you have very poor equity when called (especially when you raise big), and no amount of equity denial can make up for that.