$50NL 6-max: Flat small 3-bet OOP, donk flop into 2 players, line check

Villain is pretty much unknown, 15 hands in. He's a 7/7/17% nitty passive, if that means anything. No real timing tells on any of his bets.

Assumptions I'm making to take this line:

1) He can't raise my donk bet with any hand I beat.
2) AK will peel the turn since it picked up a straight draw.
3) Villain is too passive to c-bet into 2 players without a legit hand.

How'd I do? I'm not sure if I like my line yet, still need to give it a bit to sink in. But the plan for the hand was B/F flop, B/F turn, X/C river.

Hero (SB): $102.20 (204.4 bb)
BB: $86.29 (172.6 bb)
UTG: $69.01 (138 bb)
MP: $26.08 (52.2 bb)
CO: $9.60 (19.2 bb)
BTN: $64.20 (128.4 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with 9♠ 9♥
2 folds, CO raises to $1, BTN raises to $3.75, Hero calls $3.50, BB folds, CO calls $2.75

Flop: ($11.75) 6♥ 2♠ 5♦ (3 players)
Hero bets $8.15, CO folds, BTN calls $8.15

Turn: ($28.05) 3♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $17.25, BTN calls $17.25

River: ($62.55) J♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $35.05, Hero calls $35.05

I just think this is exactly how he plays JJ+.

1. I think this is just a fold preflop
2. "He can't raise my donk bet with any hand I beat." Does he really even call with worse? Just seems like you're donking here to fold out worse and get calls from better/possible AK.
3. Basically you beat air/AK at best. He's a 7/7 so air range is extremely small if even existent and the postflop passivity basically makes it very unlikely he's firing river with AK. I just don't understand what you think is in his range that you beat here. This honestly looks exactly like JJ+ to me. 3-bet pre, raising a donk on that board would be stupid (because basically you stack off with sets and fold stuff he beats). Same logic on turn, and then when you check river especially given it was kind of a scare card you've basically turned your hand face up. In his eyes this probably looks a ton like 6x/77-TT
4. One of the basic rules of poker, don't try to hero call a nit. They always have it, that's why they're a nit. If he had AK here nice hand I guess but I really think this is a bad call even after the questionable preflop play (actually don't mind the flop/turn play given that you flat 3-bet oop with 99 preflop, but you should never be in that spot imo, especially when a nit like that 3-bets and you aren't getting set-mining odds).

I'll post what someone told me about a similar hand that I played similarly...

Donking into two here makes you look ridiculously strong. Bet smaller to take it down now or check, which is probably your best option, and check-fold the turn if call.

c9h13no3 said:

Villain is pretty much unknown, 15 hands in. He's a 7/7/17% nitty passive, if that means anything.

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if he's really 7/7, you can only call his 3bet for set mining value because his range is crushing you. Turning a set mine into an overpair post-flop is a perfect recipe for spewing.

zachvac said:

I just think this is exactly how he plays JJ+.

1. I think this is just a fold preflop

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Getting set odds, no way. I still don't buy your "don't setmine OOP" theories. Getting like 17:1 implied odds, this is a call every time with any pair.

I disagree too that he plays JJ+ this way. I think the overpair hands let me know what's up on the turn at least. The board gets progressively scarier, and usually players stop slowplaying their big hands on the turn.

zachvac said:

2. "He can't raise my donk bet with any hand I beat." Does he really even call with worse? Just seems like you're donking here to fold out worse and get calls from better/possible AK.

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Well the other guy in the hand is a huge 65/25 folds to 30% of c-bets fish, I expected him to stack off with any part of the board (or even without some of it). Hence the donking. However, I got the nittish unknown to come along instead. Bleh.

zachvac said:

3. Basically you beat air/AK at best. He's a 7/7 so air range is extremely small if even existent and the postflop passivity basically makes it very unlikely he's firing river with AK.

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I'm not sure he's actually a 7/7. 15 hands isn't really a lot to go on. And even if he is a 7/7, I certainly expect him to call with AK. He obviously overvalues the starting value of his hands, hence his tight preflop play. And I expect him to be very straight forward postflop as well.

zachvac said:

In his eyes this probably looks a ton like 6x/77-TT

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He's not putting me on a range. We went over that before. However, it does look weakish, and isn't that even more of a reason to call the river, especially getting 2.7:1?

And if we give him a range of JJ+/AK on the river, I have 56% equity in the pot, so more than enough to call. Sure, AK probably doesn't bet sometimes, but at the same time, JJ+ probably raises the turn sometimes, so I think this offsets things.

I agree that the flop & turn are debateable. The range I'm getting value from is pretty much AK/AQs, and even they aren't far behind. My equity is low & all that. However, I think my flop donk was okay given the presence of the fish, and I think bet/fold on the turn is better than check/fold because I think I'm getting raised by a lot of his overpairs there.

I suppose check/fold to nit c-bet, bet/fold safe turn is probably a better line, since we can be far more sure that the nit doesn't have a hand. I just didn't consider his stats at all since they were only over a 15 hands sample.

Oh, and I consider the J a great card for us on the river. AJ is decidedly not in his range methinks, plus it makes JJ less likely combinatorically, which is the main hand he wouldn't raise with on the flop/turn. Plus, its an overcard, and I seem scared of it, so it makes AK/AQs more likely to bluff the river.

c9h13no3 said:

Getting set odds, no way. I still don't buy your "don't setmine OOP" theories. Getting like 17:1 implied odds, this is a call every time with any pair.

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This means you need his stack about 40% of the time (didn't do all the math, but you can work it out for us losing set over set as well as the 3-bet we get when he doesn't come along). I don't believe you are getting odds to set mine, but even if you are that's not what you did here.

c9h13no3 said:

I disagree too that he plays JJ+ this way. I think the overpair hands let me know what's up on the turn at least. The board gets progressively scarier, and usually players stop slowplaying their big hands on the turn.

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JJ+ is not a hand most (especially 7/7's) will stack off with on the flop/turn. fwiw I play JJ+ the exact same way he did possibly checking back QQ though (and possibly KK). Why would he possibly raise turn? You don't call with anything he beats and the fact that the 3 makes the board scarier is even less reason to bet, because either you got there or you don't have a draw. Either way no point in betting.

c9h13no3 said:

Well the other guy in the hand is a huge 65/25 folds to 30% of c-bets fish, I expected him to stack off with any part of the board (or even without some of it). Hence the donking. However, I got the nittish unknown to come along instead. Bleh.

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Shoulda mentioned that in the OP . Either way though I think I like a C/R against him then if you want to get it in. idk I don't hate the lead, but I just think you turn your hand face-up to any decent hand-reader (I know I know you said these guys aren't).

c9h13no3 said:

I'm not sure he's actually a 7/7. 15 hands isn't really a lot to go on. And even if he is a 7/7, I certainly expect him to call with AK. He obviously overvalues the starting value of his hands, hence his tight preflop play. And I expect him to be very straight forward postflop as well.

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I realize this is a small sample, but the passiveness shows that he does NOT over-value his hands, and any reasonable thinking player is not going to fire river here with AK and I still don't even see why you think he floats turn with AK. You do realize his gut shot is going to give the board a straight and make his A irrelevant right?

c9h13no3 said:

He's not putting me on a range. We went over that before. However, it does look weakish, and isn't that even more of a reason to call the river, especially getting 2.7:1?

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There's a difference between narrowing ranges as you make actions and advanced hand reading and simply saying "wow this looks pretty strong, probably overpair, J comes omg he checked it scared him". You seriously seem to turn your hand face up here.

c9h13no3 said:

And if we give him a range of JJ+/AK on the river, I have 56% equity in the pot, so more than enough to call. Sure, AK probably doesn't bet sometimes, but at the same time, JJ+ probably raises the turn sometimes, so I think this offsets things.

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Already went over why I don't think JJ+ raises turn (and I think doing so would be pretty bad, and a passive player usually doesn't make mistakes by being too aggro) and I still don't see AK even getting there. Maybe occaisionally because donks have trouble folding AK and then when they miss may need to bluff. Either way though he's not doing it even close to 100% of the time.

c9h13no3 said:

I agree that the flop & turn are debateable. The range I'm getting value from is pretty much AK/AQs, and even they aren't far behind. My equity is low & all that. However, I think my flop donk was okay given the presence of the fish, and I think bet/fold on the turn is better than check/fold because I think I'm getting raised by a lot of his overpairs there.

I suppose check/fold to nit c-bet, bet/fold safe turn is probably a better line, since we can be far more sure that the nit doesn't have a hand. I just didn't consider his stats at all since they were only over a 15 hands sample.

Oh, and I consider the J a great card for us on the river. AJ is decidedly not in his range methinks, plus it makes JJ less likely combinatorically, which is the main hand he wouldn't raise with on the flop/turn. Plus, its an overcard, and I seem scared of it, so it makes AK/AQs more likely to bluff the river.

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I guess you're just a nit, but I'll say again from a nit that we don't raise AA here ever. It smacks of either wanting a set paid off or a random pair/TP/air. The first stacks off easily to us and the second just folds to our raise. When you bet the turn raising with AA is just pretty horrible imo. In fact I'd almost rather you bet this river as a bluff than C/C. But on the other hand with 15 hands you don't know he's capable of folding an overpair and trying to get people to do that is basically an easy way to bleed money.

First of all stop considering this guy a passive nit. The passive part is based one 1 hand that you saw that he 3bet no less? 15 hands is not enough to say he is a nit, so lets stop using it to explain everything. After this hand he has a 29% 3bet, lets start 4betting lightly!

This hand is tough as we have no reads but I think i might just c/f turn here but that may be results oriented. I get in trouble thinking villians are floating/double floating me and just spew sometimes and this is a time where I think you are giving a bit too much credit. He has a PP a lot here and you arent beating many of those.

As for nits not ever raising with AA in a 50nl 6max game I am not so sure, nor do I think they shouldnt. AA has a value for a raise on pretty much all pairs here imo. People dont fold overpairs in 6max games to a single raise.

I dont see the point in betting river as bluff either. Only hand we fold out is TT I think. Really everyone is giving villian too much credit here, he didnt call flop and turn to fold QQ+ here. So in that regard I think c/c>bet but I dont think he has many AK in his range and probably fold this until I notice villian likes to float.

zachvac said:

When you bet the turn raising with AA is just pretty horrible imo.

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That doesn't mean he doesn't do it. You're giving this guy credit for all kinds of thinking plays. He's a 7/7, he lacks that kind of brain capacity. His thought process is "Oooh, I have a premium hand, put $ in. Crap, I don't have premium hand, what do I do now?"

Yeah, after reviewing the hand, I'm not sure I liked the line that much (hence the post). Like I said in the previous post, I think X/F flop, B/F turn, X/C any non A,K,Q,4, river would be a better line to take. You agree that's a better plan for the hand?

And I usually play 88+ for pair value to catch bluffs & whatnot even when I set-mine. Might be a leak in cases like these where villain's range is likely strong. And I still think you guys are giving villain too much credit and relying too much on the 15 hand sample size.

And omfg, I think betting this river is SOOOO SPEW, you can't be serious. He is NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER folding any overpair if he slowplayed it this far. Maybe TT, but I think he even calls with that.

c9h13no3 said:

That doesn't mean he doesn't do it. You're giving this guy credit for all kinds of thinking plays. He's a 7/7, he lacks that kind of brain capacity.

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Seriously, I play something like 20/18 when i play 6max, but there are a ton of tables where i'll be 7/7 over the first 15 hands.

BelgoSuisse said:

Seriously, I play something like 20/18 when i play 6max, but there a ton of tables where i'll be 7/7 over the first 15 hands.

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K, how about this. He's an unknown at 50NL, on average, he lacks that kind of brain capacity. However you wanna slice it, I'm definitely leaning towards this guy being bad postflop.

c9h13no3 said:

That doesn't mean he doesn't do it. You're giving this guy credit for all kinds of thinking plays. He's a 7/7, he lacks that kind of brain capacity. His thought process is "Oooh, I have a premium hand, put $ in. Crap, I don't have premium hand, what do I do now?"

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7/7 shows his preflop play. The fact that he's passive shows that he does not try to put a bunch of money in postflop and is probably the type that won't go broke with one pair.

c9h13no3 said:

Yeah, after reviewing the hand, I'm not sure I liked the line that much (hence the post). Like I said in the previous post, I think X/F flop, B/F turn, X/C any non A,K,Q,4, river would be a better line to take. You agree that's a better plan for the hand?

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Don't see the point in calling preflop if you're gonna C/F this flop, I still think it's just a fold preflop. If it was a 7/7 that couldn't fold postflop it's a fine set mine, but his stats show the contrary.

c9h13no3 said:

And I usually play 88+ for pair value to catch bluffs & whatnot even when I set-mine. Might be a leak in cases like these where villain's range is likely strong. And I still think you guys are giving villain too much credit and relying too much on the 15 hand sample size.

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So is 7/7 relevant or not? I think we agree it shows he probably is not a crazy monkey. It shows that at least the one time he did, he opened and did not limp. It basically shows that he is semi-competent.

c9h13no3 said:

And omfg, I think betting this river is SOOOO SPEW, you can't be serious. He is NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER folding any overpair if he slowplayed it this far. Maybe TT, but I think he even calls with that.

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I still don't see how you call what he's doing slowplaying. You lead and he flats. Overpairs don't raise your donk here. Flatting it all the way in position is not slowplaying at all.

This though:

zachvac said:

trying to get people to do that is basically an easy way to bleed money.

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I wasn't saying it was a good idea, I just said I like it more than the line you took here.

Villain showed up with AdKd, suppose I was being results oriented.

Wow idk I mean I guess if he fires AK there then it's a good call. It's just pretty bad calling that turn. You mention that AK picks up a straight in the OP but if he hits the straight he plays the board. So he's drawing to overs (which may not be good) and a gutshot to split. Meh guess that's how we make money.

He had nut flush with overs. AKd is one of, if not the only, hand we beat here I think. c/c still >>>b/f though. I dont understand why we would ever lead out here?