betting into the raiser

Im playing NLH and decide to limp in in early position to mix things up and get raised by middle position. I call hoping to hit or outplay him. If the board is a Q47 or a K28 is it a good idea to bet into him if i have nothing because he may have nothing also or is this a donk bet? As alot of times i know if i check hes almost always going to cbet me!!

I used to check raise with nothing but i feel leading out is risking less chips. Or is it correct to do both to mix up your play?

POOT85 said:

I used to check raise with nothing but i feel leading out is risking less chips. Or is it correct to do both to mix up your play?

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I mix it up a little, but also consider a check fold if the texture of the flop looks like it hit a hand he would have raised with. (Usually if an A or K on board). You don't have to win every pot you see a flop on

POOT85 said:

Im playing NLH and decide to limp in in early position to mix things up and get raised by middle position. I call hoping to hit or outplay him. If the board is a Q47 or a K28 is it a good idea to bet into him if i have nothing because he may have nothing also or is this a donk bet? As alot of times i know if i check hes almost always going to cbet me!!

I used to check raise with nothing but i feel leading out is risking less chips. Or is it correct to do both to mix up your play?

Click to expand...

Limping with the intention of calling for any purposes other than set mining or taking it away on dry boards is a leak imo. You don't want to be playing pots out of position with marginal hands. If you donk into them OOP, they can float you with a variety of hands and you are done unless you want to fire a second barrel. This is an easy way to win small pots and lose big ones. Position is power!

If people play fit or fold, you can represent more hands by open raising. The only way you can "mix things up" here would be to mix in premiums into your limp calling range which would result in a ton of lost value.

WurlyQ said:

Limping with the intention of calling for any purposes other than set mining or taking it away on dry boards is a leak imo.

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I thought that is what the OP was talking about initially. If the board produces an A or K, I am done with any plans to steal the pot. If he floats me or plays back, I'm probably done too, unless I improve somehow, or have a huge read on the raiser.

It's a great idea as long as you goal is giving away your chips.

If you have other goals:
1) stop limp/calling
2) play as few pots as possible OOP
3) stop donk betting

My default line against a limp/call pre, donk flop, is to raise with any 2 cards. And if I think you're bad enough to take this line often I really could have any 2 because I'm going to be isolating you a lot preflop and then you're just giving me a few extra $$ post before you fold. Position is power.

of course its important to mix your play but i think , to bet into the raiser is a bad move 90% of the time he will reraise you even if he got nothing
i usually check to the raise and reraise if i think he is weak

yay i love this situation.....this is my take......first you need to decide what he would raise with is he a tight player or not...i might take a shot here from that position if there is not draws out there to confuse u if u get a call cause if he calls with no draw then he has u beat but if there is a draw its hard to place him......basically its better to call and then bet into him on the flop when there are no big cards but u can bluff big cards when u are the preflop raiser and u get a call

ok i realise that open limping is not the best way, so what if im in the small or big blind and the cutoff or button raise. Obviously late in a tourney am gonna reraise with a decent holding or even with nothing if i think hes stealing. But say its quite early and the chips are deep and i hold QJ or KJ or some marginal hand, would you it be a good idea to bet into the raiser then as i know that he could be raising with 56suited or a pair of 8s?

POOT85 said:

Im playing NLH and decide to limp in in early position to mix things up and get raised by middle position. I call hoping to hit or outplay him. If the board is a Q47 or a K28 is it a good idea to bet into him if i have nothing because he may have nothing also or is this a donk bet? As alot of times i know if i check hes almost always going to cbet me!!

I used to check raise with nothing but i feel leading out is risking less chips. Or is it correct to do both to mix up your play?

Click to expand...

1st off "leading into the raiser" is what a "donk" bet is. it not because it dumb or smart. sometimes its good to "donk" bet. but limp/calling is weak poker. i do limp/raise once in a while to mix it up but hardly ever limp/call. you are out of postion for the rest of the hand if you call. playing hands OOP is losing poker. "i call hoping to hit or outplay him" is not a very good idea. for one calling hoping to hit. not a very good idea IMO. also out playing someone without position is not a good play either IMO. 2/3 of out playing someone is having position on him in the 1st place. I will raise a donk bet(someone leading into me as the preflop raiser) 90% on the time. I rarely care about what cards I hold. If i do have a strong hand i'll probably just call to see what the OOP player does on the turn. not i good spot for him i got a hand and position and he got to decide to fire another bluff or not. position is key use it!

POOT85 said:

ok i realise that open limping is not the best way, so what if im in the small or big blind and the cutoff or button raise. Obviously late in a tourney am gonna reraise with a decent holding or even with nothing if i think hes stealing. But say its quite early and the chips are deep and i hold QJ or KJ or some marginal hand, would you it be a good idea to bet into the raiser then as i know that he could be raising with 56suited or a pair of 8s?

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QJ,KJ,AQ,AJ,AT,KT,JT,QT and KQ all these hands are known as trouble hands. Early on on a tournament I most likely fold these to a raise without even an after thought. why because if i flop top pair there are so many hands that beat me. if i flop an ace i got to worry about my kicker if i flop any other top pair i'm still worried about an over pair or better kicker. these all are ok hands to play with position if your pretty good at playing post flop. but OOP these hands can often lose you lots of chips when you flop the 2nd best hand. while they only win you a small amount of chips when you flop the best hand. eg say you have QJ and the flop comes Q59 do you really think someone is likely to lose lots of chips holding pocket 8's? but lets say they got AQ then what happens? my point is try to play in position this means playing tight from the blinds. if you feel you got to defend the blinds then go ahead and reraise see if that gets him to fold. but you got to remember the blinds are small at the start of the tourney IMO its often best not to defend them to early on. playing from the blinds i either fold or raise preflop rarely would i flat call. and i wont donk bet unless i got a mdae hand i want to protect. such as a set on a draw heavy board. or maybe i flopped a flush and dont want the turn to make 4 of the same suit killing my action or completing a higher flush draw.

well i mean check/raising with nothing can be considered a donk move. if you havent played more than 20 hands with this person i would not bet if you have nothing.

ok say its early in a tourney and im in early position and raise 2 and a half BB with pocket 8s, then someone in late position makes a reraise to 5 BB obviously im going to call because the reraise was poor. The board comes 249 or Q36 is it a good idea to donk bet here to protect my hand? I find it hard to check as i know hes only going to make a cbet which puts the desicion back on me!

You could say because he reraises he could have a premium hand but at lower stakes this could be any paint or 55 or practically anything, which is why in my earlier posts i normally limp in ep because people at lower stakes are strong preflop weak post flop.

My question now is When is it good to donk bet into the raiser?

POOT85 said:

My question now is When is it good to donk bet into the raiser?

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that depends entirely on the raiser if he is likely to call you down or he never c-bets, bet if you have a good hand. if he is likely to raise you, go with your monsters. if he is likely to fold, go with almost any 2. it is never correct in the absolute to donk-bet. you need a lot of other information.

POOT85 said:

ok say its early in a tourney and im in early position and raise 2 and a half BB with pocket 8s, then someone in late position makes a reraise to 5 BB obviously im going to call because the reraise was poor. The board comes 249 or Q36 is it a good idea to donk bet here to protect my hand? I find it hard to check as i know hes only going to make a cbet which puts the desicion back on me!

You could say because he reraises he could have a premium hand but at lower stakes this could be any paint or 55 or practically anything, which is why in my earlier posts i normally limp in ep because people at lower stakes are strong preflop weak post flop.

My question now is When is it good to donk bet into the raiser?

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this is a tough spot here. there's only one over and you got a pocket pair. this is why we try to aviod being OOP. a spot like this you may try for a check/raise. i guess if you got a hand that your most likely going to call a bet i think your probably better off betting. i dont think 88 makes the cut here. yes he gave you odds to call the 3bet but you missed the set let it go. this is a hand that most likely wont be looking so hot if you get to the river. if you bet and he called then a cbet is fine here. i think the best times to donk are hands like 2pair or sets on draw heavy boards. lets say you hit your set on an 8hJhTh board. you want to donk here for a few reasons. 1 for value you want to build the pot up to get allin by the river. and 2 if a 9,Q,K,A or any heart falls that may just kill any chance of getting action from weaker hands. 3 to protect your hand from any draws out there. but a middle pair OOP you got your odds to hit missed let it go. what does donking do for you here? does it get any hands you beat to call? do you get any hands that beat you to fold? yes you may get called by AK or something but there are too many hands that call you that beat you here. and not enough that you beat that still call.

Most tables I play on if you bet into a raiser regardless of what he has he will come over the top. Anytime I raise and someone bets into me its a standard play to see if they are bluffing me

thanks for your time cardplayer, much appreciated!

one more question, say the rolls are reversed and i isolate a limper with a raise in position. Say i dont hit the board and the limper makes a decent 3/4 pot donk bet into me, i find it quite hard to float here or raise with nothing! Does it all depend if this player is tight or a tricky player whether to call?

it mostly depends on stack sizes to me. did the 3/4 bet commit him to the pot. if not its pretty much standard to me to just reraise here. i should qualify that with if this is a ring game. i might let it go in a SNG more so than a MTT. but for the most part people are either trying to bluff to see if they can win here or to see if there middle pair is good here. in either case my answer is no its not good. if however you hit that flop hard you might slow play. ive been meaning to post a few hands were i raised a donk bet. because i win these so often that i wonder if i float and raise the turn that i may even make more money. but doing this so often ive learned to be wary of the min. donk bets on a very dry board. if your 3bet of a donk bet gets 4bet they have a set. think about what you would do if you had the 88 on the Q63 board. you bet i raised the flop came you donked and i raised? what do you do with your 8's?

There are really only two situations in which I like betting into the raiser from early position...one is when I flop a monster, know their an aggressive player, or feel confident they hit the flop as well and will bump it enabling me to move all in. The second is a stealing play I sometimes use when I'm big stacked in a 1-2 cash game where I intentionally call a large raise of say 15-20$ out of EP when NOBODY else has called before me in hopes an A (or even a K) will hit the board and I can fire out a bet making like I hit that Ace and they fold their queens or jacks...every player is different, but from my experience...typically pre-flop raises of 8-10 times the BB in 1-2 or 2-5 are often indicators the raiser does not want to see an Ace and often a King on the flop as well. I occasionally will not even look at my cards in the SB or BB in this situation until after I've won the hand...its a pure stealing play I like to use to keep the rarely seen bluffing side of my game sharp. I do not like betting into the raiser when I flop something like an open ended straight or 4 to the nut flush...I know many players do this but all that usually winds up happening is that the initial raiser bumps it making you pay 2 to 3 times more than you'd have initially had to pay to the see the turn had you simply checked it.

POOT85 said:

ok say its early in a tourney and im in early position and raise 2 and a half BB with pocket 8s, then someone in late position makes a reraise to 5 BB obviously im going to call because the reraise was poor. The board comes 249 or Q36 is it a good idea to donk bet here to protect my hand? I find it hard to check as i know hes only going to make a cbet which puts the desicion back on me!

You could say because he reraises he could have a premium hand but at lower stakes this could be any paint or 55 or practically anything, which is why in my earlier posts i normally limp in ep because people at lower stakes are strong preflop weak post flop.

My question now is When is it good to donk bet into the raiser?

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If u have a PP lets say 8's and u limp early pos. Then a guy raises u call flop comes 25J rainbow. If u know this guy is playin a bit loose and makes c/bets then for max vaule its better to check/raise.
Same situation same guy flop comes 25A rainbow then make a 1/2 pot bet. He mite fold his JJ or KQ, if he calls then ur done puttin money into the pot. Alot of ppl float the flop these days so u cud b ahead while this guy is still tryin to catch, or worse he's trappin with a monster.

Realy depends on the guy ur playing but try stay in pos. Fold that crap in early pos. The only good hands in early pos are PP's + AK. Even AK is crap in early.