$109 NL HE MTT: 3x donks and overbet on river

[Rajten]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Table Format

MTT

Buy-in

109

VP$IP

20

Game Options

1. Bounty

Currency

$

Sunday Milions bounty

villain 20 15 3b 7 cb 80

pokerstars, $100 + $9 - Hold'em No Limit - 200/400 (50 ante) - 8 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/1256NEysV

UTG: 26,295 (66 bb)
UTG+1 (Hero): 29,809 (75 bb)
MP: 37,869 (95 bb)
MP+1: 36,880 (92 bb)
CO: 61,611 (154 bb)
BU: 22,900 (57 bb)
SB: 16,648 (42 bb)
BB: 31,484 (79 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,000) Hero is UTG+1 with Q♣ K♣
1 fold, Hero raises to 880, 3 players fold, BTN calls 880, SB calls 680, BB calls 480

Flop: (3,920) Q♦ T♣ 9♥ (4 players)
SB checks, BB bets 1,400, Hero calls 1,400, 2 players fold

Turn: (6,720) 5♠ (2 players)
BB bets 3,880, Hero calls 3,880

River: (14,480) 3♥ (2 players)
BB bets 25,274 (all-in), Hero ???

I don't know what to think about this hand, Is avarage villain capable of overbet all in with J bluff in 109$ buyin? Sometimes he does probably? We reduce some combination of nuts with K, but better to call is probably KK and JQ. All opinions are welcome.

 

[Andyreas]

The problem with the Blinds is that they can have any two cards. Especially the BB since he only has to play an additional of 1.2 BBs to enter the hand.

I can definitely see him calling with J8s, KJ which would have you beat with a straight. Additionally he could also have QT, Q9 or T9 which beat you with two pair.

Since he continuously bet half pot on flop and turn, I definitely see him having a made hand. On river the possibilities are:
- he wants to get your bounty
- he missed his draw and makes a huge bluff.

Of course he could also be bluffing but his stats induce him being rather tight.

So I wouldn't risk my tourney life for a board with straight potential.

Also your bounty plays a role too.

 

[Rajten]

I got one elmination, so my bounty is 37,50

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
I prefer a larger raise size this deep to create less multiway pots and have a bigger chance to pick it up uncontested.

Flop
I always get a little curious, when a reg donk bets, and I typically dive into my HUD to see his donk bet stats. If its really low like 3%, I will typically assume, that his donking range is very unbalanced and skewed towards nut hands, which in this case would be KJ. If its higher like 10-15%, then I will put him on a wider range. If its really high like 50-60%, then he is not a reg, and we would not see stats like VPIP 20 / PFR 15. With that being said in this particular case I dont think, there is any play other than to call regardless of his stats. Folding top pair good kicker to a small donk bet on the flop would be extremely tight, and raising would be an overplay.

Turn
Now he bet again, and just for the record this is not a donk bet. A donk bet means leading into the previous street aggressor. Villian was the flop aggressor, and now he is continuing his aggression, but he is not donk betting. If he had really low donk bet stats like those 3%, maybe we could actually consider bailing out now. But the standard play is definitely to call again and see the river in position. If he check the river, my plan would be to check back and show down my top pair.

River
Now he is definitely representing KJ for value, and the question is, do we want to bluff catch? I dont play 109$ MTTs, so I am not familiar with, how the average reg at these stakes play. But to me this looks like an underbluffed line. There was no flushdraw, so the only logical bluffs would be hands with a J in them. And a lot of those had showdown value like QJ, JT, J9 and to some extend even AJ. So for me at least its pretty weird to donk those hands on the flop. Personally I would be far more likely to play them as a check-call especially multiway. Donking with KJ makes a lot more sense, because he prevents it from getting checked through, and he might even induce a raise.

We can also go back to a simple concept like SPR and look at, which kind of hands we normally would stack off at the present SPR. Here it was around 7 on the flop, and especially multiway a single pair is pretty much never a hand, we want to stack off that deep. An important aspect here is, that Hero can also have the nuts, and all 16 combos of it. So even if Hero was to only call down with the nuts, its not like, this would be massively exploitable. If we do want to call wider than just the nuts, then KK is the most ideal candidate, since it strongly block KJ. But after that KQ seems like a good candidate, because it also block KJ. QJ is way worse, because while it block KJ, it also block all the busted JX draws.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
I prefer a larger raise size this deep to create less multiway pots and have a bigger chance to pick it up uncontested.

Flop
I always get a little curious, when a reg donk bets, and I typically dive into my HUD to see his donk bet stats. If its really low like 3%, I will typically assume, that his donking range is very unbalanced and skewed towards nut hands, which in this case would be KJ. If its higher like 10-15%, then I will put him on a wider range. If its really high like 50-60%, then he is not a reg, and we would not see stats like VPIP 20 / PFR 15. With that being said in this particular case I dont think, there is any play other than to call regardless of his stats. Folding top pair good kicker to a small donk bet on the flop would be extremely tight, and raising would be an overplay.

Turn
Now he bet again, and just for the record this is not a donk bet. A donk bet means leading into the previous street aggressor. Villian was the flop aggressor, and now he is continuing his aggression, but he is not donk betting. If he had really low donk bet stats like those 3%, maybe we could actually consider bailing out now. But the standard play is definitely to call again and see the river in position. If he check the river, my plan would be to check back and show down my top pair.

River
Now he is definitely representing KJ for value, and the question is, do we want to bluff catch? I dont play 109$ MTTs, so I am not familiar with, how the average reg at these stakes play. But to me this looks like an underbluffed line. There was no flushdraw, so the only logical bluffs would be hands with a J in them. And a lot of those had showdown value like QJ, JT, J9 and to some extend even AJ. So for me at least its pretty weird to donk those hands on the flop. Personally I would be far more likely to play them as a check-call especially multiway. Donking with KJ makes a lot more sense, because he prevents it from getting checked through, and he might even induce a raise.

We can also go back to a simple concept like SPR and look at, which kind of hands we normally would stack off at the present SPR. Here it was around 7 on the flop, and especially multiway a single pair is pretty much never a hand, we want to stack off that deep. An important aspect here is, that Hero can also have the nuts, and all 16 combos of it. So even if Hero was to only call down with the nuts, its not like, this would be massively exploitable. If we do want to call wider than just the nuts, we want to have a K in our hand to block the nuts. But we dont particularly want to have a J, because then we also block the most logical bluffs. So the best bluff catcher is KK, and then the second best is actually the one, we have, KQ.

 

[Matt_Burns88]

I would recommend a larger raise size preflop. My raise sizing typically looks like this:
<30bb - 2x
30bb-50bb - 2.2x
50bb - 75bb - 2.5x
75bb+ - 2.75x

As this is right on the cusp of 75bb, I think either 2.5x or 2.75x is absolutely fine, but 2.2 is too little and encourages callers and it is almost never a mistake for BB to call. You want to limit multiway pots, especially when you're early to act, because you're likely going to have to play the rest of the hand out of position.

Leads tend to be one of two things; monsters or very strong draws like open ended with a flush draw. As the flop is rainbow that draw is not possible, but I guess they might play AJ suited with the backdoor flush this way as well. The small bet is also interesting - it kinda feels like inducement and trying to milk everyone at the table. At the same time you have top pair second kicker and we're never folding here.

The turn doesn't really change anything. I think it's interesting that he now sizes up to a 58% pot bet here. BTN and SB folded on the flop so he's now targeting your stronger opening range rather than all 3 players wider ranges. I think we could at least consider the possibility of folding here, but the majority of the time this is still a fairly easy call.

Villains river bet is very polarising. We do need to consider that this could be a bluff and I think at $109 level, a reg is certainly capable of triple barrel bluffing off his stack, but I think back to his flop lead into your UTG+1 raise and I just feel like this is much more likely value than bluff.

 

[eetenor]

Sunday Milions bounty

villain 20 15 3b 7 cb 80

PokerStars, $100 + $9 - Hold'em No Limit - 200/400 (50 ante) - 8 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/1256NEysV

UTG: 26,295 (66 bb)
UTG+1 (Hero): 29,809 (75 bb)
MP: 37,869 (95 bb)
MP+1: 36,880 (92 bb)
CO: 61,611 (154 bb)
BU: 22,900 (57 bb)
SB: 16,648 (42 bb)
BB: 31,484 (79 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,000) Hero is UTG+1 with Q♣ K♣
1 fold, Hero raises to 880, 3 players fold, BTN calls 880, SB calls 680, BB calls 480

Flop: (3,920) Q♦ T♣ 9♥ (4 players)
SB checks, BB bets 1,400, Hero calls 1,400, 2 players fold

Turn: (6,720) 5♠ (2 players)
BB bets 3,880, Hero calls 3,880

River: (14,480) 3♥ (2 players)
BB bets 25,274 (all-in), Hero ???

I don't know what to think about this hand, Is avarage villain capable of overbet all in with J bluff in 109$ buyin? Sometimes he does probably? We reduce some combination of nuts with K, but better to call is probably KK and JQ. All opinions are welcome

Did not look at results yet-
As played we have a bluff catcher on the river-why? Qx 1 pair does not get full value on this river by shoving and we can have AA KK AQ KQ- What hands does V target for value on this dirty a board with QX for a shove?-
Do they think they can get AA to fold when we called KQ? Do they think the player pool calls too often or folds?

So what JX hands lead flop 4 ways? Why lead not check raise? They are leading into the raiser with all the other players behind if they have an open ended draw why lead to be raised and then have others fold? If they have the nuts why lead? If they have a set why lead? We have to bet this flop with most hands that want to continue so why lead?
Of course players will lead these--- the why is what matters. That is your study point.