$10 NLHE Full Ring: Raising donk pot bet and shoving turn with TPGK - value or spew?

$10 NLHE Full Ring: Raising donk pot bet and shoving turn with TPGK - value or spew?

UTG+1 ($13.01)
MP1 ($4)
MP2 ($13.11)
MP3 ($9.88)
CO ($10.05)
Hero (Button) ($10.09)
SB ($3.40)
BB ($12.48)
UTG ($16.01)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 10 , A
3 folds, MP2 calls $0.10, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.40, 2 folds, MP2 calls $0.30

Flop: ($0.95) 5 , A , Q (2 players)
MP2 bets $0.95, Hero raises to $2.80, MP2 calls $1.85

Turn: ($6.55) 9 (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $6.89 (All-In), MP2 calls $6.89

River: ($20.33) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $20.33 | Rake: $1.01

Villain is complete unknown, my 3rd hand on the table.

My thinking process:
1) If he really has a better Ace or 2P+, why is he donking at all and why so big? Checkraise is more logical. So I conclude he has a worse Ace (limpcall!) and is a fish (it is Saturday so not entirely unreasonable assumption ).

Opinions?

Sorry, bad title, ATs is TPMK not TPGK.

So you play 10NL now. Nice nice. You're a pretty bright individual with a seemingly analytic mind so I didn't think it would take you long at all. You were being a little bit of a bankroll nit or I think you would've been here sooner still. That being said, I think this is going to be your plateau for the time being, at least until you rework how you arrive at some of the decisions you're currently making. These are big plays for big pots based on assumptions that you can't exactly say are reliable.

First, it makes less sense to donk a psb with a rag ace than it does with a hand that's beating you. Of course players like these make nonsensical plays quite a bit, but that's the problem with projecting how you play/think into their situation isn't it. We can likely rule out a bluff at the pot once he calls your flop raise. The part I want to understand is, if you've truly pegged this guy on an ace with a kicker that doesn't make 2 pair and isn't better than yours, what is with the overbet shove on the turn? (Note that stacks get little awkward here by not going closer to pot when you raise otf.) I guess that's one way to find out if you're beat or not, because once he calls that the likelihood of this actually being A6 drops like a nit. I mean rock. Were you trying to prevent him from sucking out with a 3 outer. I can't make your thought process jive with your actions.

Your other topic where you raise/fold otf to that shortie with ridiculous stats and 43 blinds behind him (half of which was in the pot after he min raised you oop) is probably worse. What did you think was going to happen when you 2bet? He was either going to fold or raise you back. His AF over the 400ish hands you have on him makes it hard to assume he was going to go into bluff catching mode or call down passively on a QTx twotone flop after betting.

All I'm really saying is going from (accurately) profiling players, getting into their head etc to planning lines and taking exploitative actions based on that information... and basically just correctly maximizing your expected value against these players and their hand ranges in a given situation... is something you'll be examining if you're going to eventually move to the next level and become a winning player at 25NL+.

Edit: One last thing. Before you reply to state that villain was in fact drawing to 3 outs when he called that turn shove, it's kind of beside the point. My point is that you can't reliably assume a complete unknown is going to get his stack in with a bare ace and a garbage kicker in the face of all the strength you're showing just because he limp/called. By the same token, a pot sized flop bet isn't necessarily a weak ace in the first place. Beyond that, be sure bear in mind how your opponents will perceive your own actions and don't focus solely on what you make of theirs, and I've no doubt you'll be a solid winner at 10NL.

Thank you for the nice writeup and kind words. I know I have a long way to go, hopefully by year's end I will be able to hold my own in 25NL if I get there. If I need to learn a lot to do it, so be it

I struggled quite a bit at 5NL and didn't want to move up until I am at least in profit, regardless of BR size. I planned to move up on 1.8. with around 75BI, but then hit a bad downswing and eventually started with 70BI with a plan to move back down if I get destroyed and lose 20BI. So far it is going well enough but only 3.6k hands played with 5 evbb/100 win rate (12 bb/100 total, I am running well for once since I coolered some guy with underset)... no cause for celebration.

I think there is some difference between the 2 hands (or I wouldn't post them both). The other one is definitely suspect with that questionable flop raise since I do have some info on the guy.

In this hand I figured I am ahead on the flop and decided to put the money in since in my experience (2NL and 5NL ) this kind of player will not fold his TP until the river, where he might find the fold button and then I lose value if I am ahead.

I mean, if I look from his perspective, he is also donking pot into an unknown player (what is that supposed to achieve?). I find it pretty illogical and more bad than good as far as moves go and from that the rest of the thinking process goes If I am beaten, so be it, but pot sized donk bet is usually way too big for a power hand (again, 2NL + 5NL speaking).

I usually raise 3x, is that wrong? Minraises are pretty crappy unless I hold the absolute nuts and want to just string the opponent along (and the opponent is a fish). It conveniently sets up the turn shove, although a few more bb on the flop wouldn't hurt if that is the idea.


I suppose you recommend just calling him down? If I try that then every time stacks go in (3 barrels, I call) I am dead unless I get runner runner T... seems like -EV play. Also calling lets say 2 barrels and folding river is burning money.

Basically the whole donk bet issue is very problematic for me (I pretty much never donk, but chkraise). Fish LOVE donking and folding to that nonstop without 2 pairs+ is suicide.

LD1977 said:

I think there is some difference between the 2 hands (or I wouldn't post them both). The other one is definitely suspect with that questionable flop raise since I do have some info on the guy.

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Yeah there is a quite lot of difference between the two hands. They are similar in that I had difficulty figuring out why you were doing what you were doing though.

LD1977 said:

In this hand I figured I am ahead on the flop and decided to put the money in since in my experience (2NL and 5NL ) this kind of player will not fold his TP until the river, where he might find the fold button and then I lose value if I am ahead.

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Not saying you're wrong, but I'm challenging you to take a thorough look at your own rationale. What do you mean by "this kind of player"? You said he was a complete unknown. If this is simply based on the donk bet otf, well, in my opinion his full pot bet is indicative of a polarized range a lot of the time here and not so much mediocre hands with showdown value. In this particular case, he turns over a bluff catcher </spoiler> that he played about as terribly as he possibly could. I realized this is what happened so I edited my original post, but as a general rule most players aren't going to be so astoundingly bad. Out of curiosity did you check how many tables he was playing at the time of the hand?

LD1977 said:

I mean, if I look from his perspective, he is also donking pot into an unknown player (what is that supposed to achieve?). I find it pretty illogical and more bad than good as far as moves go and from that the rest of the thinking process goes If I am beaten, so be it, but pot sized donk bet is usually way too big for a power hand (again, 2NL + 5NL speaking).

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Well, small donk bets certainly aren't a telltale sign of a monster (again, generally speaking) and if we're looking at the sizing specifically I'd argue it's more indicative of strength than the contrary. I suspect it was more the fact that he donked into you at all that led you to believe AT was the nuts and not so much the size of his bet.

LD1977 said:

I usually raise 3x, is that wrong? Minraises are pretty crappy unless I hold the absolute nuts and want to just string the opponent along (and the opponent is a fish). It conveniently sets up the turn shove, although a few more bb on the flop wouldn't hurt if that is the idea.

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The idea is a few more BB, yes. If you intend to get all the chips in ott, the turn sizing and the more typical pot odds that result is a little more compelling to hands that aren't crushing you in this spot.

LD1977 said:

I suppose you recommend just calling him down? If I try that then every time stacks go in (3 barrels, I call) I am dead unless I get runner runner T... seems like -EV play. Also calling lets say 2 barrels and folding river is burning money.

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The reason for that is because sane players at your stakes don't often bet all three streets with hands that top pair T kicker do well against. With the hand you put him on however you're not going to get bet into 3 times.

I've not recommended a particular line, with reason. There are a lot of other people here who can play this hand for you. I'm just here to ponder out loud if that every time you call 3 barrels you're dead and calling 2 barrels and then folding is burning money can both actually be true. It would mean you're already dead on the turn and can safely fold there if bet into a second time. It would also suggest calling on the flop as opposed to putting in a raise before this player has a chance to give his hand away ott. It's an example of what I mean about effectively translating the information and knowledge you have into exploitative plays.

For what it's worth, I'm fine with betting any time you're checked to here.

LD1977 said:

Basically the whole donk bet issue is very problematic for me (I pretty much never donk, but chkraise). Fish LOVE donking and folding to that nonstop without 2 pairs+ is suicide.

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Never advocated a fold, despite the pot sized donk from in your words an unknown. Your options are call or raise - raising being more of a player dependent move unless you're trying to fold out bluffs. People who know me are well aware I raise a ton of donk bets like it's my job. At one point it technically was. The reason is never just to see what happens - there's always a plan. If the plan here was to over rep your hand, don't make a habit out if it because even at 10NL players most players don't play what it shows in your spoiler like this. If the plan was to exploit a really bad fish who calls off over 100 blinds light, then it's fine ofc but then we go back to my first post about just how reliably we can actually peg this guy at the time as being a really bad fish who calls off over 100 blinds light.

I'm really just trying to offer a (not so) subtle lesson about when and why to take non standard lines. It's not that I'm trying to be overly critical, although if I picked that KQ topic to talk with you in instead I'd probably come off very critical.

I am pretty sure he was playing one table since after a hand like this I immediately go "Find player" and sit on all his tables actually he left this table after losing his stack so my guess is he hit his daily limit/spent his deposit. I did not check it beforehand though (leak! ).

I don't mind criticism as long as it is actually explained - "you are an idiot" may be true but is unhelpful by itself while "you are an idiot because this and that" is the right stuff.

Your explanation seems logical as far as pot sized donk bet goes, but "blocker" sized bets need to be raised right? Last thing I want is to be giving free cards if I actually do have a hand?

I do tend to raise donk bets like a madman but I am trying to tone it down it is hard though, when a fish fires 2bb into 30bb pot I just get pissed off. Failed bluff attempts taught me that fish do not fold TP, like, ever.

Weak blocker type bets are the ones I often raise. You don't want to let such bets keep you from putting more into the pot than you would otherwise put in, and the general rule is just to treat them as checks if they're small enough. You might come across the odd player who uses them with big hands to induce a raise, but I think this last happened in 1986. 10NL maybe a different story, but anyway if a large 3bet follows you're likely crushed (sorta like the limp/reraise with AA). These people give their strat away by the frequency at which they make the play.

Against a lot of uNL and bad SSNL players you can print money by raising donk bets in the right spots. You can sometimes (less than you might think) win more money by letting them barrel into you instead, but if it's a small donk bet you'll usually rather get more money in the pot. You'll also get a lot of flop folds which is great too. If I played 10NL for an hour I'd probably see like 15 different spots where I open from w/e position and get called by the big blind, raise the flop bet they make that's less than half the pot, and get a fold right there. They really can't call down oop without improving unless they completely suck, and those special few (dude in your HH here is one of them) can be separated from their stacks in easier ways.

As the competition gets better, playing against donk bets does get more complicated. Many very good players make a habit of it. Heads up you almost have to. These players have reasons to donk and they have a very good idea of your range when they bet into you, but you won't really need to worry about those players for awhile.

I use a lot of donk bets myself. Pretty sure they named it after me. It can do a lot of things, like help you dictate who's first and who's last to get their stack into the middle. The reason not a lot of players donk much is that most people cbet too much in general. It also means that players tend not to play very well versus donk bettors too, but again this is more of a uNL player and bad SSNL player thing.

I don't know... He's an unknown I don't know how u can have that strong a read. When he calls there... I can't fathom he has worse than u. I feel like he's only calling with better.

I don't need to donk since as you say people cbet a lot so check raise is more profitable. This might be why I have so much trouble with donk bets in general.

Jblocher1 - Regs in 5NL (and it seems 10NL too) pretty much never donk into people plus I never saw him before, so that makes him likely recreational player.

I take it you're making notes on different players when they donk, yes. That would be a good start.

Always, I note sizes and boards they donk on and if I raised what happened.

i like the raise on the flop the shove on the turn is too much u want to keep him around if he is drawing for a flush bet of 4$ is better. donk bets on the lower limits are most of the time signs of weakness.

DunningKruger said:

Weak blocker type bets are the ones I often raise. You don't want to let such bets keep you from putting more into the pot than you would otherwise put in, and the general rule is just to treat them as checks if they're small enough. ---

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What if he donks around 1/3 to 1/2 pot and my cbet is 3/4 pot? I have to raise more than I would put in myself.

Their bet creates a new pot size and if you want to go ¾ pot for whatever reason you can still do that and raise after a ½ pot bet such that you're offering them the same 7:3 odds you'd be doing if they check to you and you went 75%. It's just that their range is likely different when they donk versus when they check.

If I intend to bet a flop and they donk 1/3 I'm likely raising that up. It all comes down to what their donking range is, but a 1/3 pot bet oop otf is usually going to be a mediocre to weak hand. Doesn't necessarily mean they're folding it. Half pot similar situation it's not going to be a strong hand at the micros by and large although there are some players (be warned if a really passive player decides to donk) where this may not be the case. Note taking is always vital.

I've seen players donk paired flops basically 100% of the time. I've seen players donk any pair otf (including 22 on a KJ7 board). You'll see it from weak draws wanting to see a cheap turn a lot. It just comes down to what brand of idiot is trying to play to play against you. Most players expect a cbet a lot of the time (regardless of flop texture) and for that reason donk bets will be often weak at 10NL. A big part of deciding whether to call or raise is simply how willing they are to call you down, so whatever stats you have or even prior hands you've seen them play at your table (with whoever) help there. Against large donk bets or against complete unknowns, you always have the option of peeling another card and seeing what they decide to do on the turn. Position is pretty awesome in NLHE. Oh and folding is often fine there also.

LD1977 said:

My thinking process:
1) If he really has a better Ace or 2P+, why is he donking at all and why so big? Checkraise is more logical. So I conclude he has a worse Ace (limpcall!) and is a fish (it is Saturday so not entirely unreasonable assumption ).

Opinions?

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Can you show us some stats form time to time. At least the VPIP/PFR. I need to see something like 40/10

Hard to judge from only 2 hands

DK - Thx, I will have to really look deep into this topic, it just happens nonstop and I am improvising too much.