2/5: Nut FD + gutter vs rec’s donk/3b-jam

The bold is key -- we don't know this when he donks. Also, I'd much rather just gii now w/ flush draw over flush draw than give him any chance to fold later.

If he has a flush draw is probably a high one: KTs, QJs, JTs, T9s, etc. We block most of the low flush draw which would be combo draws, so stronger draws. Kind of doubt he shove JTs, but he probably calls the raise with it (although he maybe should fold), which is also good for you.

This is just a difference between "hand players" and "range players". Typically the hand players get what they deserve.

Did you call? What did villain have?

I guess maybe you folded. You generally can't raise/fold a combo draw on a wet board. You are flipping a lot here versus a pair and straight draw.

I don't really understand what you are getting at.

Generally, most bad live players are just playing their specific 2 cards. We should be focusing on hand reading them as much as we can through a variety of heuristics, showdowns seen, live tells...and then choose an exploitative strategy that works really well against our estimation on his range.

Sometimes, we can narrow his range very significantly to a small number of combos.

Maybe you are saying that people shouldn't be short circuiting their strategies to focus too much on a few specific combos when there is a whole range to consider.

In many live hands, I personally think that there will be enough info to think that Villain's range is leaning more towards weak hands or medium strength hands or strong hands.

Would it be nice if we could get even more info than that? I guess it would be nice. But we might have to take the limited info that we have and start exploiting immediately in the current street because waiting for a later street can have some significant disadvantages.

I understand when people prefer "call and re-evaluate, " but I think we have to have the courage to make exploits early in the hand if we think that we have "enough info + equity." Waiting for later in the hand for Villain's range to become more transparent and give us more clarity on how to proceed is tempting, but it does cost us when we had a lot of urgency to make a risky exploit earlier that had a lot of upside to reward us for the risk that we were taking.

First mover advantage is a thing. If you were using the analogy of the stock market, you could "wait for more clarity" on certain scenarios playing out a certain way. Or you could pull the trigger on an investment now before those scenarios have played out yet. Which route do you think yields higher returns? Well, the higher returns usually accrue to those who take the higher risks.

Thanks for the input all.

Results:

I called. V shows 55. I bricked.

V proceeded to display a 99% VPIP and check/call off his entire stack with garbage to the remaining players.

So much for V donking with a weak hand.

Even 99% VPIP players can flop a set.

If he turned out to be a 99% VPIP whale, then he is getting to this flop with all sorts of garbage like trashy Qx suited, Jx suited, and Tx suited. That means that he has a huge number of weak flush draws in his range, and he doesn't need to donkbet more than a small % of them to have plenty of combos of draws in his range.

This doesn't even account for random K4s/Q4s/J4s/T4s that might be donking into us with a garbage open ended straight draw.

The fact that he turned out to be a 99% VPIP whale should make us want to raise this flop with a strong nut draw even more.

Can I say that I would have raised a little more preflop? Taking it down with A7s is not a bad result, and a bigger pot OTF would go a long way toward clearing up any discussion of whether we have pot odds to draw.

Also, score one for regurgitating Marc Goone. Look at that sweet baby there.