2/5: Nut FD + gutter vs rec’s donk/3b-jam

Confused
If I have 90% equity, but I know this villain 100% has the nuts.

I’m supposed to say pot odds and jump in there. Are you saying I catch up often enough to justify risking another $300?

Really not trying to be snarky
Just trying to understand

I’m a tight player and this seems like a lot of gamble. I can skip this spot and wait until I have the nuts and he’s drawing.

Seriously, it may not seem like it, but I respect all of you. You’re probably better players than me. I play once a week and eke out a little profit.

I absolutely love learning about poker.
That’s why I’m here

Thinking about the game deeply makes me a better player and most of you are very helpful.

Villain can have the nuts here, but you still have to call. You are 32% against a set and you need 34%. The nuts would be 64s for a straight and you are 37% against that if not clubs and 25% against it if clubs. Even if he is always strong here, you are way above 34% against his range.

docvail,

Lately, you just copy+paste some stuff that you saw from a Hungry Horse Poker video, and you often mis apply it.

It's obvious that you are just copy+pasting your thoughts here facing a small 3-ways flop donkbet on this texture by what you think Marc Goone would do based off his YT videos

The problem is that you aren't basing it off data points compiled by actual live pros + serious recs who have combined ridiculous number of hours facing spots like this. And have developed some heuristics on what likely range a small flop donkbet 3-ways on this type of texture likely means.

You haven't played much live poker yourself, and it's obvious that you don't have a group of poker pro friends + serious recs who regularly discuss hands over Discord etc.

That's why you often get these spots wrong.

If you had access to all that data based off their experience, maybe you wouldn't just be in copy+paste mode based off the YT videos that you watched.

https://twoplustwo.com/Live-No-Limit-Holdem-Cash/13t67/1-2-5-Top-pair-donked-into

This is from another donkbet HH discussion posted in this sub forum recently. The Hero in that HH entitled "1-2-5 Top pair, donked into" made the correct flop raise on T73ddh with JThh TP facing the weak flop action. The Villain donkbettor in that hand ended up having J9 offsuit for a gut shot.

It's pretty obvious that docvail is going to keep following "Marc Goone told me to play like this" and then regurgitating it on this forum regardless of what poker common sense would dictate.

Someone who is bad enough to limp-call from UTG, and then donk the flop, is also bad enough to just go with a 1-pair hand here in my opinion. I could see someone putting OP on AK (as they all do) and just jamming 88 or 99 here. I guess he could also have 44 and 66, which would have a fair bit of equity against bigger pairs.

People in live games like to limp AA from UTG but I think that hand is very unlikely here, for two reasons:

1) Hero blocks it ever so slightly.
2) People who limp AA mostly do it to limp-reraise, not to limp call and go multi-way.

In short, I would call here and feel fine about it. We are obviously running into sets or A3 at times, but I also think there are other hands that we are doing ok against.

It's kind of crazy to say V's donk is always BS, so we should raise (as a bluff, in this instance). And then when we raise, he jams.

If it's BS, we should call IP, and let him barrel turn, so we get another street of value before trying to make him fold. If we want to start a bluff to make him fold some weak value hand, we can always bet if he checks to us. I could see raising for value with a vulnerable hand if we think he's on a draw, but we're the one on a draw here, making it more likely he has value.

If it isn't BS, we should just flat call, because he's likely to 3B if we raise, and we'll be forced to call off because of all the equity we'd be be sacrificing if we fold, and because we will be getting the correct pot odds, even as an underdog.

We could have seen the turn for $25. Even if the turn is a brick and he pots it, we can see a river for another $125. We could have realized all our equity for $125. Instead we're risking $420 on the flop with a draw.

Meanwhile, what are the odds V is going to donk flop with value and then fold if we make our hand on the turn or river? Seems low. What are the odds he's going to fold a BS hand if we raise flop or start applying pressure on the turn? Seems high.

We don't need to argue over how often his donk is value or BS. We should just focus on finding the best action in game. Flat calling seems like the best action, unless we were hoping to get stacks in on the flop.

Seeing the turn for $25 might be seeing it for way too little.

If I have a strong hand (even if it's technically a draw) that is a favorite against his overall range, I want to see the turn for a lot more than $25 and force Villain to play a big pot with me unless he wants to fold right now.

It's not actually correct to say that letting him get to the turn for a small amount with BS is always good for us even if Marc Goone said something to that effect in a YT video.

There are a lot of ways that things can play out. I won't bother going into all of them.

But the majority of possible things will go pretty favorably for us in larger pots if we put in a sizeable raise NOW.

For example, we raise to $110. Villain calls. We jam pot-sized on a blank turn, and Villain folds 75ss faceup.

We got him to put a good amount of money into the pot. We semibluff jammed turn with a boatload of equity. And we got a fold from a weak 1 pair hand.

Something like that will happen a decent percentage of the time. And that's quite a good outcome that we should try to set up for ourselves by raising the flop immediately.

If we flat the $25, I doubt we get another dime if the flush hits on the turn. We have a huge draw, and the raise should get some money in the pot or we could take it down now with just a draw. Either is fine with me. The shove is unexpected, but we have the odds to call. It's a no-brainer, really.

Flat calling initially is better. You can be in a difficult situation if he calls the raise also.

OP was looking at his own hand and not at what villain could have on a notoriously wet board. That 3 wheel-card flop is well known, with an ace having a straight draw, lots of overpairs and draws, and possible made straights.

It could be that OP also assumed the donk bet indicated weakness, which is not clear in this situation. But that isn't that most important issue here.

Once he shoves, he is probably strong. Villain could be overplaying his hand on this board even more than OP is. If has weaker hands, that is good, but it is an easy call regardless.

Not being snarky either but you need to google and learn about pot odds, equity and what makes a call plus or minus expected value. These are the very basics, fundamentals of poker.

This is ''fine'' btw. Some players do avoid high variance spots even if they're +EV. It's not necessarily ''good'' but it's not bad either.

Yep lol. Had a good laugh when he posted this ''incredibly profitable line'' nonsense in a hand where it would've cost us a ton of money to follow that line because Marc Goone said it's a very profitable line.

Just calling would make more sense if Hero had KQ with just 1 club. Fine. Take one card off for cheap with KQ high and a backdoor flush draw and see what the Villain does on the turn. Maybe we can win a small pot versus Villain's BS on later streets. Maybe we'll just fold turn if the heat gets too hot for us to handle.

But A7cc is a monster on this flop. We want to play a big pot here unless Villain is a nit.

I'll just say this. When I go over hands like this with good players who each individually have a lot of hours compiled at live poker and therefore have a ridiculous number of hours compiled as a group across multiple poker markers...

This flop donkbet is ON AVERAGE going to be a medium to weak hand.

Is it possible that Villain is donking out small with a super nutted hand? Yeah it's possible.

Is it likely? Hell no. It's actually pretty unlikely.

Even though Marc Goone is a very good player, you should actually look at the many mistakes that be has been making in his recent vlogger hands posted on YouTube from his most recent Hustler 5/5 sessions.

He himself has admitted that he has been having bad results lately because Villains were doing things that he didn't expect them to do.

So it's just lazy to go "Marc Goone said that we should do XYZ."

Because it is a wet board, the donkbet should not be assuming to be likely to be weak. The shove should not be a surprise, given the wet board, and given it is hard for villain to flat call it leaving a psb left. It also wouldn't be a surprise if villain calls it, and shoves the turn, which would be a disaster for OP. If villain calls and checks the turn, you can shove with a weaker draw, but good pot odds. The raise is a little bit of an overplay. Unless villain folds to it, which is not that likely on the wet board, you are likely in a difficult position later on.

In terms of balance, it also puts our opponents in tough spots when we raise flops like this with our strongest draws.

If players notice that we only raise this flop with a set or a straight, we might not get paid off when we raise this flop with our nutted value.

It's 2026, and a lot of rec players are thinking about poker at some level. I even talked to a losing player the other day who said that he was going to pay 5k for a 5 day HHP course in the hopes that it will save him 5k at 5/5 NLHE this year.

I know...you guys are probably flabbergasted that a big losing recreational player would pay $1000/day (maybe 2-3 hours actually) for 5 days. But it's happening.

It makes sense for us to have a flop raising range here with our sets/straights because we want to play a big pot for value immediately before a bad turn card comes.

Against rec players who are increasingly getting better at poker, it is actually nice that we have the occasional flop raise here with a strong draw to balance out all the other times where we are raising here with a set/straight.

It is good to raise with draws, but I am not sure if this is a strong enough draw to raise with. This type of flop is one people tend to semibluff and overplay on.

It's not a good board to raise with a draw on.

What if Villain turns his cards faceup and we see that he has KTcc or QJcc?

Is it a good board to raise with A7cc after he turns those cards over?

The point is that there are some draws in his range. We are CRUSHING those draws when we hold A7cc.

I also doubt that he is going to fold his FDs to a flop raise because he'll be way too tempted to chase his FD for one card (turn).

So again I ask you...is this a good board to raise with our strongest nut draws when Villian could easily have a FD here?

I will throw out a caveat.

If you are playing against a stone cold nit, then it's fine to flat A7cc nut combo draw here versus the nit's donkbet.

But this guy wasn't described as a nit.

Yeah, the raise probably works well if he has 88 or KcJc. If he flat calls and you miss the turn, you need to fold if he shoves first to act, and you probably need to continue the semibluff and shove if he checks the turn.

Based on my experience, I expect the villain's most likely possessions after taking this line to be 66/56/54/44. He is shoving because he believes he is ahead right now and his hand is vulnerable, which it is. I wonder if this thread would exist if the hero hit his draw though.

He did limp/call from UTG and this is 2/5, so he's probably not great. I can easily see KcXc in his range -- or worse. Maybe A4.

Yeah, I agree this is a lot of his range after he shoves and you are a little behind it.

If you did call the flop, it is not true you would not get action if you hit. If he has a flush draw, then you probably stack him if the flush hits without raising the flop.