1/3 - flop quads facing donk

This is literally the easiest call in the history of poker.

When a passive fish comes out donking, shouldn't our first instinct to be raising with value?

No, your first instinct should be that you have the pfr yet to act behind you and you have all heavy "I can call a raise and play for stacks" value hands other than exactly 88 blocked. You have the absolute perfect hand to bluff with, except you want people to call you. So call and don't try to get people to fold in spots where you're basically always winning at showdown.

There's 2 more people behind you and getting stacks in on later streets won't be hard. I honestly see 0 reason to consider raising this flop. If anything you thinking about raising here makes me question your sanity.

If V has 88, the money is going in. If has 88, either you win all the money now or all the money on later streets. Now lets look at the rest of his range. You are next to act, there is 2 more player next to you. If you raised on paired board, they could fold a OESD or gutter, if you called they are more likely to call. The only merit of raising if someone has a vulnerable PP like 99 and they are so incredibly passive and call way too wide, because if someone has 99 and is a Loose and Passive. he would just call but would also call a raise. but that is very specific play against a small portion of their range against a very specific player in case you somehow know his cards. Another reason to call is that SPR if you called is ~3 on the turn and it is not that to get the money in.

Grunch:

Reads - I'm not sure how much we can take away from the prior hand histories. It just looks like V will call with marginal holdings when he's given a reasonable price.

We might be able to infer that he's a decent enough hand-reader to know when his marginal hand is likely best. But that may be giving him too much credit. He may just be getting lucky while button-clicking.

I don't think I'd have folded KK to his donk in the prior hand. If we got a reveal on that one, it might help with this one.

PRE - flat calling to set-mine with 55 in the BB seems fine. But in this configuration, I might 3B, depending on our reads of the CO and BTN.

Nobody looks very strong here, and we could have the best starting hand. If we make it $75-$90 to go, I think we'll often take it down without seeing a flop.

FLOP - so... ordinarily I'd agree that V's 1/2 pot donk into three opponents is strong. I'm not certain, but V might be one of those players who likes to trap with thick value but will make nonsensical bluffs or stab/donk with thin value.

I'd think his range here is 8x for value, 76 for a semi-bluff, or total air. The prior hand histories show he has a super wide calling range pre, so he could have some piece of it. Pray he has 88, though that seems super unlikely here.

Just flat call. We have position on him, and a raise on the flop looks exactly like 5x, unless we have a maniac image. Even if we think he's sticky, notice that in the prior hand histories he's just calling bets, not donk-calling raises.

Hope that someone behind calls or raises. More likely, I'd expect them to just fold or flat call. This has to look weird to them, and I don't think anyone is calling without 98 or better for value or 76.

I'm mostly expecting V to check a lot of turns. We can bet if he does. On 855rb, the turn will often be an over-card, or bring in 67 for a straight, or perhaps add a BDFD. We can have more bluffs in our range if we wait and bet or raise then, and he'll have more made hands that won't want to fold. He may even have some traps.

I'd really love to see a 3 or 2 that brings in a BDFD, another 8, or a 9 or 4 that brings in 67 but also adds a BDFD. If he bets again, I'd really like him to bet big. If he bets small, regardless of the turn card, I might click it back, but I think mostly I'd wait until the river to raise. If he checks turn, I'd bet small.

OMG. I just shipped my pants.

I flat here, we have position on villain and more people to act that we don't want to blow off their hands. There's almost nothing out there that can stand a raise so we really want them to pick up some more equity, or just call light and fatten the pot.

If we were HU, OOP and deeper against a guy who will pay us off with overpairs, then I think raising has merit.

I have no idea what "must raise" means in the context of this hand. Oh wait:

I guess that's why.

Your goal is to get stacks in by the river. I'm ok with a call here with the pfr is in the hand. However, you need to bet or raise on the turn to make a reasonable river. bet.

Yes, I think that is our first instinct, and we always want to narrow the field - except when we’re this strong and this hidden. We want all the company we can get to join in, and we don’t want folds or to alert anyone.

Call, don’t discourage villain(s) and hope someone improves. I’m a true believer in ‘you hit your hand, so bet’ but this is an exception, because you’re ‘high hand’ strong.

Definitely wanting to bump up the turn, but it depends on what the others do. Might hide in the weeds another street if there’s action. We want to get to the river where the ‘big bets’ happen.

This hand you call on the flop. And then afterwards, seeing something other than 88 you go back to the KK hand and call the donkbet

I'm ok with preflop. Although we'll be OOP, we're getting a discounted price plus will likely go 4ways, so it's probably ~ok.

SPR is 8 so we can fairly easily make a play for stacks by the river, especially in position to the donker. Don't see why we would do anything else other than flat the flop, especially with two others still behind us (including the preflop raiser) who can overcall+ and help pad our pot.

Gnothingtoseehere?G

Perhaps not "easiest", but pretty trivial none the less.

We are never folding on any run out (well save for two more 8s if the poker gods are shitting on us today), we want as much money in the pot as possible, and we have two more people to act including the PFR, who may well have an 8s other PPs, and draws.

@dango what did we do?

meh when he only bets 50 on the turn his range is pretty capped. i doubt you could have made much more. if you raise turn he probably folds. by calling he might bluff river.

The long tank-fold is baffling. I'm struggling to find hands that make sense in his line.

I'd think 8x would check turn at some frequency, maybe a high frequency. I'd think 76 would check at some frequency. I'd think A8 would bet bigger on turn and barrel river. I wouldn't think 8x or 76 would be considering a river x/r, though your small bet might induce some.

Hard to figure why he'd donk flop with ace-high. Maybe A2s-A4s that has some back-doors, then turned a weak TP.

I could see trashy AX combos barreling turn if they did stab at the flop. But I'd think anyone who did that would have some river barrel frequency, or just check-call, not consider a check-raise.

His river check looks like a bluff that's giving up or some sort of SDV. I somewhat wonder if he over-limped pre with some PP like 99 or even JJ, or maybe 77/66, and decided to stab flop for some value/protection.

It would be insane to think he flat called pre with KK/QQ. But all those hands and weak AX are basically the same as 8x in terms of SDV. You're probably not betting river with naked 8x or worse for value.

The flop donk, smallish turn barrel, and river tank while possibly contemplating a raise could be a big 1P that is semi-tilted from trapping pre, and now trying to figure out if a raise makes more sense than a fold or call.

I don't think you missed much if any value once the ace hits the turn. You may have gotten max value from every hand that makes even a tiny smidge of sense. Hard to find a hand that check-folds river but would have called a turn raise.

So if I've mathed right, Villain has $455 on the turn and pot is $120 and HU, where he's now bet $50. If we just flat, that creates a $220 pot with $405 left, so might be difficult to play for stacks (our goal) on the river. Interesting that he is still betting when an overcard comes. We labelled him as loose passive fish, not aggro. Against an aggro guy maybe we could keep rope-a-doping. But against this guy I think we have to raise the turn to make stacks more easily in play. If we make it a 3x $150, pot will be $420 with $305 left for a more appetizing river shove, so that's what I'd do.

As played, the gig is probably up when he checks the river. So I might just go for the gold anyways and shove and hope he does a terribly fishy play and talks himself into a call.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah I agree with gg on raising the turn to play for stacks. We're now heads up and we should try for the lot.

However with all the action laid out, there's a good chance that we got the most possible by flatting and then betting the river when he checks.

We just got unlucky by a bad turn, the plan to keep calling turn is fine.

If the turn were a blank we could min raise.

Equity denial.

Call. Can raise turn if they might pick up equity there, and there's no one behind.