NL100SH ATs, trips facing action on flop

I really dislike the flop donk. I don't see any need to have a flop donking range on a board like this OOP without the betting lead.

You rarely have AK/JJ and slightly less rarely do you have AQ, whereas the CO's range in uncapped so even if you donk both ends of your range (AJ and QTcc) you can still get put into a horror spot by the CO if he's a good reg cos his range is simpler way stronger than yours.

Also, he is going to c-bet a decent frequency here, so if you wanted a bluffing range you should build a c/r bluffing range, and you use some smaller flush draws, naked gut-shots and stuff and c/c with you Jx's and KT and QT of clubs and value raise your aces. I just can't think of any benefit we get from having a range to donk,

As played you're getting shown AK, AJ, JJ here pretty much always but it's still hard to flop a three of a type and fold it during the heat of the battle ♦ - I think a fold is almost certainly best.

Originally posted by lilDave
You rarely have AK/JJ and slightly less rarely do you have AQ, whereas the CO's range in uncapped so even if you donk both ends of your range (AJ and QTcc) you can still get put into a horror spot by the CO if he's a good reg cos his range is simpler way stronger than yours.

Nice.
How would you exploit that? b/c flop and involve all of hero's stack on turn/river blanks?
I guess the spot is a bit nicer if we're 150bb+ deep and have room for bluff shoving the river?

Vs a good reg it's pretty hard for us to exploit him. We need to play all parts of our range well (dont make lose call downs or bad raises) and be bluff raising with enough frequency that we can c/r the flop with hands like this.

A lot of strategies vs good players isn't to exploit them but to play in a way that is exploitable - this spot one of them where we're OOP with a capped range to an uncapped range where preventing him from exploiting us should be our primary concern, as he has may more ways to exploit us than visa versa

like if we c/r QTdd and he folds KQo we haven't exploited him, we're just playing our range well and were fortunate that he didn't have the top of his.

Yeh Dave owns this thread wp.

Its a really weird hand though. When sb raises he ALWAYS has at least Jx or more likely Ax, although this becomes less likely when the folds to the jam ofc. But he definitely has some kind of blocker here and potentially skews co's range to combo draws etc. There is alot of money in the middle now and assuming he doesn't fold any ace that he opened from cut off we obviously have to call, but he still has SB to act and he looks super strong.

Originally posted by lilDave
I really dislike the flop donk. I don't see any need to have a flop donking range on a board like this OOP without the betting lead.

You rarely have AK/JJ and slightly less rarely do you have AQ, whereas the CO's range in uncapped so even if you donk both ends of your range (AJ and QTcc) you can still get put into a horror spot by the CO if he's a good reg cos his range is simpler way stronger than yours.

Also, he is going to c-bet a decent frequency here, so if you wanted a bluffing range you should build a c/r bluffing range, and you use some smaller flush draws, naked gut-shots and stuff and c/c with you Jx's and KT and QT of clubs and value raise your aces. I just can't think of any benefit we get from having a range to donk,

As played you're getting shown AK, AJ, JJ here pretty much always but it's still hard to flop a three of a type and fold it during the heat of the battle ♦ - I think a fold is almost certainly best.

I guess I have to work with playing balanced a lot more, especially now that I am going to tkae shots on nl200 where the playerpool gets even smaller.

Anyway, the fact that I didn't even mention anything about the flop donkbet is because this is a typical spot where I basically do it by default.

I typically always donk in these spots 3way+ where I have a decent hand and there is a fish(or several) in the pot. My main reason for that is that I don't want CO to check behind so that I miss value from the fish, I did not even consider the "balance part" for a second here. My main concern in these spot has always been to get the maxium amount of value from the fish, balanace has never even been of any concern since I don't have a bluffdonkbetting range here.

Thoughts? Cant there be any merit in having an unbalanced donkbetting range in spots like these?

I think if we donk here then we always have to fold Jx to a cbet meaning that we are playing so weak and just allowing players to barrel vs our weak ranges.

Originally posted by pleno1
Yeh Dave owns this thread wp.

Its a really weird hand though. When sb raises he ALWAYS has at least Jx or more likely Ax, although this becomes less likely when the folds to the jam ofc. But he definitely has some kind of blocker here and potentially skews co's range to combo draws etc. There is alot of money in the middle now and assuming he doesn't fold any ace that he opened from cut off we obviously have to call, but he still has SB to act and he looks super strong.

Funny thing is that, lately, I have seen fish c/r/fold on these paired boards a lot, even multiway. ♦

Originally posted by lilDave
A lot of strategies vs good players isn't to exploit them but to play in a way that is exploitable *woooot?!?!?) - this spot one of them where we're OOP with a capped range to an uncapped range where preventing him from exploiting us should be our primary concern, as he has may more ways to exploit us than visa versa

like if we c/r QTdd and he folds KQo we haven't exploited him, we're just playing our range well and were fortunate that he didn't have the top of his.

Can you explain more? kinda feel its supaaaaa important but cant really understand what youre saying.

Originally posted by axelphoney
Funny thing is that, lately, I have seen fish c/r/fold on these paired boards a lot, even multiway. ♦

This is SO true. they just love it

Hero (BB): $54.97 (109.9 bb)
CO: $61.55 (123.1 bb)
MP: $55.50 (111 bb)
UTG: $111.75 (223.5 bb)
SB: $50.25 (100.5 bb)
BTN: $50 (100 bb)
Preflop: Hero is BB with A 7
2 folds, CO calls $0.50, 2 folds, Hero checks

Flop: ($1.25) K K 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $1, CO raises to $4.17, Hero folds

CO showed T 3 and won $3.04 ($1.54 net)

Hero (SB): $109.45 (218.9 bb)
BB: $66.68 (133.4 bb)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Q 6
Hero raises to $1, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($2) 9 9 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1, BB raises to $2.43, Hero raises to $3.86, BB folds

finding out where they are innit. these boards are v.different to AAJcc tho.

Originally posted by BC1989RF

Originally posted by lilDave
A lot of strategies vs good players isn't to exploit them but to play in a way that is exploitable *woooot?!?!?) - this spot one of them where we're OOP with a capped range to an uncapped range where preventing him from exploiting us should be our primary concern, as he has may more ways to exploit us than visa versa

like if we c/r QTdd and he folds KQo we haven't exploited him, we're just playing our range well and were fortunate that he didn't have the top of his.

Can you explain more? kinda feel its supaaaaa important but cant really understand what youre saying.

Sorry I meant to say a way that is NOT exploitable. My bad!

It's just the concept of taking hard spots on focusing how we ourselves can NOT be exploited over trying to find exploitative ways to play vs our opponents, there isn't a way to exploit our villain in every or most spots, so the way to build good range for each spot is to focus on ourselves NOT being exploited then seeing if we can make small exploitative adjustments to increase our profits.

lol the word "exploit" no longer sounds like a real word !

Cheers!