2/5 AK facing donks from whale

Just fold

The most face-up player you've ever met is betting into you when you have no pair, no draw, and no hope.

I think you were just happy to catch a pre-flop monster against a whale and feel entitled to win now. You missed the flop and he didn't. Exploit by not giving him money.

I would call here. The range that fish donk for a small size includes a lot of draws and weak one pair hands. You have the best hand here sometimes and have two over cards and two backdoor straight draws. That is a lot of equity. You are in position, the bet is very small, and there is a lot of stack depth behind against a very bad player.

Given reads and action so far.....name some draws he's donking here.

Against Qx hero is a 25 percent dog. If V bet 35, it would be a fold for me. With V’s small bet to 20, hero has the equity to call.

I generally just fold to donk bets when I hit air. You’re not earning a lot of money calling here unless you can force the whale to make a mistake on the turn or river.

There's no way you get to showdown without putting more than 25% of the money in the pot.

Backdoor draws with suited spades, clubs, diamond such as KJcc, TJcc. Hero is a 15 percent dog to A5cc, A3dd

The action so far is V straddled and called a small raise. Fish defend incredibly wide from the straddle. The reads support that he is very loose (VPIP 53s, A4o). Draws would include 76s, 74s, 64s, 42s, A4. He probably has the offsuit combos of a lot of those hands from preflop too. This is not to mention backdoor stuff like JTdd T9dd and random stabs like KJo, AT, etc.

My experience (which includes some limited study) is that this range (fish donk small HU) is very weak. Their strongest hands are donked for a bigger size or are checked (to x/raise or x/call). Either way, I would expect the fish to turn his hand face up on the turn.

First time at the casino, can't tell the difference between raising and calling, has never put in a chip post-flop without a pair ....but you're giving this guy credit for gutshot-backdoor donk bluffs ????

Cmon man

No I'm giving him credit for having an incredibly wide range pre-flop and clicking random buttons post-flop. Ace King has showdown value and can improve in several ways. The bet is for less than one-third pot, effectively 2bb, and we're in position. Doesn't seem like a good spot to fold to me.

That's not consistent with the reads given, the hand histories provided, or observed reality.

Is it OK if I don't base my entire strategy off of a couple showdowns observed in one hour of play? OP also suggested he has donked in other spots. You really think he always has top pair here?

FWIW if he fired out for $40 on this flop, I am on board with folding.

I am 100% positive he has Ace-high beat.

If that's true, are you OK with just ceding ~22% equity getting greater than 4-to-1 on a call in position against a drooler?

Yes

Your equity doesn't mean anything unless you're going to showdown. You'll need to pay a lot more than this bet to realize that equity. More than 22% of the pot.

In my experience, it isn't terribly difficult to realize equity in position against beginners. Certainly there will be times where you fold some last shreds of equity on the turn, but I would expect you could make up for that by getting value from the whale when you hit. There may be some occasions to bluff too, since we seem to agree that V doesn't always have TP+ here.

You are getting such a good price on the flop too that it wouldn't be a problem to under-realize your equity a little bit.

Dude, you are such a station.

You really can't be serious. I think you're just espousing contrarian lines for the sake of arguing. Nothing you are saying comports with common sense, or good poker. You're telling us to call with 20% equity and a 4 to 1 price. But that's only break-even. Do you make a lot of money playing break-even poker?? Also, realizing our equity requires us to get to the river for this price every time. We won't. If Villain has a hand, he's gonna bet again on the turn. So you have to compare the cost of this call plus the potential turn call to the final pot, and then compare that to your 20% equity. When you do that, you'll see this is WILDLY unprofitable. You're paying to draw on the turn, and that's it. You have less than a 10% chance of making a hand, not 20%.

And how do you know that making a hand will result in us winning. Villain has all 18 combos of AQ and KQ in his range. We could easily step into a black hole of reverse implied odds. Where is that accounted for in your equation?

You also said this....

This is where your advice gets supremely bizarre. First, you say he's got 74s and 64s, but you don't mention 65s. You say he's got 42s, but not 43s. Weird how you completely forgot to mention the hands that are beating us right now. But I digress. The truly unbelievable part of this for me is that you're giving him this kind of range and want to just call. You've decided, -- based on a hunch, with no factual, logical, or mathematical basis, -- that villain has all these combos of air in his range. But ok, let's say that's true. You're supposed to raise!. All the hands you named are gutshots that you'll never see coming if they hit. After all, if he has 42s, and hits an Ace....how are you not paying him off? What's the plan there??

You have to raise to deny equity against all those hands you named. But you're not, you're calling. So you've invented your own set of facts just to facilitate bad advice, and somehow you managed to turn that into worse advice.

Huh??? I was responding to your question about what draws are in range! That’s why I only included draws in the post you quoted. Of course Villain has 65s and 43s and many other combos of weak one pair hands in his range. I said that in my original post in this thread.

I think it would be very reasonable to raise here too, by the way. I would raise in this spot with a lot of hands that have less showdown value than AK. I could be convinced it’s better to raise AKss here than call too.

I’m not really interested in arguing this with you any further. I can promise you that I am not “espousing contrarian lines for the sake of arguing” though lol.

Fair enough. But that doesn't change the fact that every hand you named could never be in villain's range unless he's a schizophrenic experiencing a meth overdose at the poker table. I didn't see that mentioned in any of the reads given.

Absolute spew. Raising into a guy with a made hand, who is never folding, with K-high, or whatever crap hand you're imagining, is not the object of the game. The object of the game is to win money.

Could you? You seem fairly committed to "call". And besides, raising is better than calling in 90% of poker situations anyway. So it's not like you'd be having an epiphany or anything.

T9dd????? You're really telling me that wasn't a joke?

I agree with you. I do think he has most combos of those hands from pre-flop. I don't expect him to fold a hand like 42s from the straddle to a single 3x raise. I do not think he is donking every combo of every straight draw every time. I would expect that he checks some of his draws, along with some of his value.

I would include a number of draws in his flop donking range though, along with weak one pair hands, some top pairs, and the occasional nut hand. I would also include some combos of random air. It doesn't have to be T9dd.

We clearly disagree on that. That is fine. I don't think it needs to be argued any further.

The way I understand it is that when you miss the flop with AK, you still have a 20% chance to hit one by the river. I’m tight, but I call here.

It’s something to dispute whether a small donk is weak, so that a large raise will cause a fold often. My experience is it’s top pair, probably bad kicker, but I don’t want to make this guy fold - too unpredictable.

This is kinda a standard float
I call flop because if I catch up on the turn, this guy likely pays off. If I miss again, he might check this time - sometimes they give up
Give villain a chance to make a mistake.

Just my opinion, I don’t want to argue about it

HOW?

This is what I mean. You've been given reads that villain plays totally face-up and has no idea what he's doing. He's playing level 0 poker where he bets when he has a hand, and folds when he doesn't. Yet somehow you're convinced he has suddenly, for the first time ever, talked himself into stabbing into the pre-flop raiser with a ten-high backdoor flush draw.

Do you really not see how absurd that is? Do you see why a sensible person would assume you're trolling?

Our read is that he has a pair, which is better than our hand (by a lot on this board). So we call because we don't want him to fold a better hand???? What logic is this? What timeline am I in right now?

Oh please....PLEASE...elaborate on this. I'm dying to know where you picked up the idea that this is "standard"

.

How do you figure? Do you realize that his range is heavily weighted with AQ and KQ here? Do you realize that if you improve, he improves too? You'd still be losing? How in the world is he going to "pay off" if he somehow finds himself on the turn with second pair and out of position against a hero who just switched gears from passive to aggressive.??

This is just "feelz" and "wishes". Tell me what villain's range is, tell me what hands will pay off when they turn second-best?

Not by making huge -EV tunafish mistakes ourselves!!!

Probably not folding to a 1/3 pot donk when we're HU. Hard to be overly certain about his range from the prior hands, when it seems like he may just be clicking buttons.

At least calling. Might click it to $40. Not expecting him to 3B much, if ever, but probably folding if he does. Mostly expecting him to either make an incorrect fold or call and then check to us on most or all turns.

His range getting to the flop is probably ATC. His donk range could be almost ATC. Let's just push back a smidge and see how he reacts.

I have no words right now.

None