Maybe 90 mins into our session. V is early 20s college student. Seems to have some poker knowledge but we have identified some leaks. Estimated VPIP/PFR is maybe 35/25. These ranges do not appear to change with position (opening things like JTo and Q9s in EP/MP). Also shows strong bet sizing correlation, large bets are often weaker. Also calling raises very wide, overdrawing. Hero should be seen as tighter and aggressive but haven't gotten many hands. Also haven't shown down many to this point.

OTTH: V ($180 effective) opens from MP to $15, folds to Hero (covers) OTB with Ah9h. Never flatting with this hand, mostly folding but the rest of the table is relatively weak. We 3 bet to $55. Folds back around to V who pauses only slightly then calls.

Flop (~$110 after rake): Jc 9d 5s
V donk jams $125. Hero?

Based on his earlier play I'm confident he never jams 2 pair or sets here. We are behind his continuing Jx range but ahead of QT and 9x. I expect to also get shown hands like TT, 88 here on occasion. Stronger hands have usually been played as check / raise or check / call on dry boards. It's an admittedly light 3 bet to exploit Vs wide opening range with sizing correlation (he hadn't opened more than $12 with stronger hands). I look over and see V has elevated heart rate and seems excited but this doesn't always mean he's weak. How often are you folding vs this V with this action?

It is a fold. In the best case, we are in a 50/50 situation with a villain who also opens hands like J9s and T9s (data according to Flopzilla).
We review the sequence:
Preflop: V enters with 7.5bb to what you re-raise approximately to 3.66 times from BTN. Basically you are giving away almost a 1/3 of your stack in a marginal hand. I do not find profitable 3bet from this place. It is more comfortable to make a call.
Flop: it has a fairly dry texture, with overcard and second best table pair for you.
In this texture, the villain will discard his hand only 30% of the time, taking into account his rank (data from Flopzilla). You are probably being mastered most of the time in these flops. The villain could wear an overpair, and seek to catch you at this point.
Regards.

Originally Posted by gustav197poker

It is a fold. In the best case, we are in a 50/50 situation with a villain who also opens hands like J9s and T9s (data according to Flopzilla).
We review the sequence:
Preflop: V enters with 7.5bb to what you re-raise approximately to 3.66 times from BTN. Basically you are giving away almost a 1/3 of your stack in a marginal hand. I do not find profitable 3bet from this place. It is more comfortable to make a call.
Flop: it has a fairly dry texture, with overcard and second best table pair for you.
In this texture, the villain will discard his hand only 30% of the time, taking into account his rank (data from Flopzilla). You are probably being mastered most of the time in these flops. The villain could wear an overpair, and seek to catch you at this point.
Regards.

Thanks for the reply. I understand your point of view but based on our limited history V would never donk over bet jam top two pair on this flop since he wants us to call. We want V to jam his T9s here since we have it drawing to 3 outs.
Pre: We cover V so it is not nearly 1/3 of our stack it is close to 1/3 of Vs stack, that is the point. We want to put pressure on his weak raising range. We are ahead of most of his raising range. In my opinion calling is bad as we cap our range and allow others into the pot behind us. I would rather fold than call.
Flop: There are only 3 overpairs to this board and V would be raising (4 bet) them all pre flop at some frequency. Also there is no flush draw to worry about so I would expect V to use a smaller size to donk bet flop. Or go with the check / raise as cbet frequency after a 3 bet pre is quite high and SPR is low enough that he can still get it in easily on turn / river. Against an unknown player with zero reads I agree that the 3 bet is too light. This bet appears to want us to fold. And maybe we should but it seems fairly close to me given reads.

From btn you can call a 3bet with A9s in btn, your hand is marginal but you exceed 81% of all possible combinations, besides the villain's opening probably has some strength at 7bb in 1/2. Do you think it can polarize a lot since mp? From that point, you can afford a larger 3bet, to throw all the trash combos in pre. But at 3x I think your 3bet strength is very low.

Originally Posted by gustav197poker

From btn you can call a 3bet with A9s in btn, your hand is marginal but you exceed 81% of all possible combinations, besides the villain's opening probably has some strength at 7bb in 1/2. Do you think it can polarize a lot since mp? From that point, you can afford a larger 3bet, to throw all the trash combos in pre. But at 3x I think your 3bet strength is very low.

I'm not calling a 3 bet with A9s I'm making the 3 bet. I would also obv fold to the 4 bet if he made it. In all previous shown down hands when V opened at sizes 7.5 BB+ it was with the weaker part of his raising range. Suited connectors and suited 1 gappers and off suit broadways. That's part of the sizing tell issue I was talking about. His value bets are often smaller when he wants action. I do agree I could size the 3 bet a bit larger $60 or so is probably better but my objective isn't to get all folds, I also don't mind playing in position with this hand against his continuing range. If I make it too large he may start to make correct folds. If he folds it's a good result. But if he continues with his whole PFR range then it's just as good if not better to play in position with a range advantage with a medium suited Ace.

You have the second best pair, your Ace does not help you in this case, since you are being dominated by better ranges. And if the villain opens with connectors, you probably have little promising board, since you don't block any of the scales that favor the villain.

Honestly, with a stack to pot ratio of just over 1, that may be a call. A lot of the time you'll see that kind of stop and go with complete air.

With his absurdly oversized open raise, which I guess is normal for these soft live games, he is effectively playing as a cap stacker. And right of the bat I dont like 3-betting cap stackers with a hand like A9s, which play kind of poorly in a low SPR environment. I also dont like flatting, so I would just fold.

As played I am sticking it in on the flop. We hit one of the best flops, we could have hoped for, so if we are not continuing now, then why did we even get involved. I think, this line is a bullshit bluff or a 1 pair hand a lot of the time. If he flopped a monster, there is no reason for him to play this fast. Even if you check behind, he can easily get it in on the turn and river.

We could be behind to a hand like KJ or TT, but in that case at least we have 5 outs, so we will just need to hope to let lucky, and maybe run it twice, if he is ok with that.

Originally Posted by gustav197poker

You have the second best pair, your Ace does not help you in this case, since you are being dominated by better ranges. And if the villain opens with connectors, you probably have little promising board, since you don't block any of the scales that favor the villain.

Originally Posted by Sidetracked

Honestly, with a stack to pot ratio of just over 1, that may be a call. A lot of the time you'll see that kind of stop and go with complete air.

Originally Posted by fundiver199

With his absurdly oversized open raise, which I guess is normal for these soft live games, he is effectively playing as a cap stacker. And right of the bat I dont like 3-betting cap stackers with a hand like A9s, which play kind of poorly in a low SPR environment. I also dont like flatting, so I would just fold.

As played I am sticking it in on the flop. We hit one of the best flops, we could have hoped for, so if we are not continuing now, then why did we even get involved. I think, this line is a bullshit bluff or a 1 pair hand a lot of the time. If he flopped a monster, there is no reason for him to play this fast. Even if you check behind, he can easily get it in on the turn and river.

We could be behind to a hand like KJ or TT, but in that case at least we have 5 outs, so we will just need to hope to let lucky, and maybe run it twice, if he is ok with that.

Thanks guys. So 1 fold, 2 calls so far. I agree that I could have been more patient pre and just folded here but I also still feel this hand does well against his PFR range. Don't plan on getting carried away with these going forward. Would be nice to get a few more opinions.

I think you have a fairly stable place on the flop, you have overcome several 9x that may want to deceive you. And the table is mixed and prone to many bluffs.
But I also think that your balance changes a lot in a post-flop-turn scenario, given the aggressiveness of the villain.
When I say that your ace is not good, I mean the post flop scenario. If on the turn or on the river a king or a queen falls, or even a ten. In these cases, you could be below AX (considering your 5 outs, you would face 10 streets against you).
This is without considering the Jx that may also have arrived in the V range.
We can rule out overpairs if we are optimistic and opt for our reach. (We will be eliminating around 6 combos with K-K and Q-Q)
As additional information, we know that V could be playing connectors. In that case, we must take into account that our combination is something dry for this texture. However, reaching the turn by investing little would be within our means, given our initiative to play speculative combinations. But to arrive at a double execution, in my opinion it is to prioritize the current scenario and downplay the possible improvements that V could obtain.

Calling seems to be a break even play or maybe slightly winning, if his range is truly as wide as you say.

Pot odds require you to be good 35% of the time, and against this exact range of hands you are: 88-JJ, 55, QTs, J9s, T8s, QTo, J9o , T8o

Against which you are actually at 42% equity. I don't know anything about live poker, the donk shove is hard to read.

That play feels like KQ to me. People love KQ, and that's a pretty solid semi-bluff spot with the overs and gutter. I hate the donk-shove in this spot, I just find it to be sloppy and trashy poker. There's also a very strong chance that...he knew you'd cbet and couldn't call anything, so he quick jammed with a complete bluff because it's the only way he could win the hand. It's completely incorrect thinking at the poker table, but I used to think like that early on when I played much less regularly and much more recreationally. I think you're ahead almost always here, once in a while he'll have Jx and it will be annoying...but overall still a good spot to get it in.

So it's honestly a flip for me. If you see that an elevated heart rate means that he could be having a made hand, then you also have to look at his pre-flop raises and see what those mean. Does he normally raise 15 or does it range with the ranges he plays? The re-raise is good but the over-call tells me that he has a strong hand. He could have AK-A10 or a better pocket.

When you play these types of hands you end up in this position, especially against an active player. If you're willing to play it pre, you might have to look him up and call with such an aggro factor.

Has he gone all in before? I tend to think he has a pair with maybe a bad draw with the marginal middle range of hands q10, 78 etc. He wants to blow you off the hand but he has outs. I'm a calling station so I would call. However, I would of called with a9s on the button. V isn't noticing your tight image

Thanks all for the additional feedback.

gustav197poker - Not sure I followed all of that 100%, it sounds like English may not be your first language but I think I get the gist.

teh_colonel_saigon - Thanks, I actually think his range is wider than that, and I really don't expect him to jam into us with top two pair almost ever as he wants a call and doesn't expect us to hit any turns hard enough to catch up. I'd expect him to 4! most of his AK and overpairs but hands like KQ, AQ, T9, 98 are definitely in play, especially the suited combos.

kkonicke - I was thinking along similar lines. There isn't much reason to jam into the 3 bettor unless you really want a fold with an SPR this low. It could indeed be some weird leveling play or a scared weak Jx or TT that beats us also though. Thanks.

TheDude6622 - Good point on the heart rate, that could go either way. From what I had seen thus far the larger raises both pre and post were the weaker portions of his range. More often to be suited connectors and one gaps, broadway cards, small pairs. He tended to size down slightly with his monsters, presumably to get more action.

PackinPat - Yes, he had gone all in before but had not been called. My problem with flat calling pre is that it invites the blinds and limpers in as well. The table is fairly weak, loose, passive overall but there are two stronger players one of which is in the blinds. If we flat and get squeezed we just wasted $15, if we flat and end up going 4 ways it's really tough to realize our equity unless we make 2 pair+. I would rather just fold this or 3 bet to ISO with V or just take it down.

I think you were lucky in this hand, if you have been seen before entering with everything, probably another player would seek to catch you with an overpair on a totally dry rainbow board.

Originally Posted by gustav197poker

I think you were lucky in this hand, if you have been seen before entering with everything, probably another player would seek to catch you with an overpair on a totally dry rainbow board.

I was definitely not lucky this hand, I made the call so I got to see Vs hand. I also mentioned in OP that I had not shown much down and had not been seen playing a lot of hands or anything questionable. I was aggressive but played infrequently. I also only showed down value hands.

NH good for you. I had to be sure of that ending

I'm not able to find it, what was the end result of this hand? It looks like you made the call. What did V have, and did you end up winning?

Originally Posted by kkonicke

I'm not able to find it, what was the end result of this hand? It looks like you made the call. What did V have, and did you end up winning?

V had 89s and turned the 8 to double up. We can't get it in much better than that but I still felt it was a tough spot, especially for 1/2 where I'm not used to Vs putting me in tough spots.

Originally Posted by c0rnBr34d

V had 89s and turned the 8 to double up. We can't get it in much better than that but I still felt it was a tough spot, especially for 1/2 where I'm not used to Vs putting me in tough spots.

That's so gross, man you deserved better. Donk betting drives me friggin crazy, to see the guy get it in so bad and suckout...I'll just take solace knowing that dude for sure lost every dollar within the next 2 hours.

Originally Posted by kkonicke

That's so gross, man you deserved better. Donk betting drives me friggin crazy, to see the guy get it in so bad and suckout...I'll just take solace knowing that dude for sure lost every dollar within the next 2 hours.

Yea it sucked. He was getting a lot of his large bets through though, the table knew he had bluffs but still didn't want to make big calls. During later convo he indicated it was his second buy in and he was in for $600. He was exploiting a large portion of the table that didn't know how to adjust to his aggression. I did end up chipping back up but never got to stack him. I took $120 off him one hand and he still had close to $300 when I left for the night. He seemed to be chasing the $600 number so he probably eventually did give it all back but after I doubled him up he hovered between 250-400 for a couple of hours. I was happy that I was able to keep my composure and not tilt.