O-Poker

I meant to get around to posting this last week.

Follow up of my last post. Thanks for all the great comments.

What do you do when he donk bets the flop?

Full Tilt Poker MiniFTOPS Event #12 $109 (antes from the start) No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t30/t60 Blinds + t7ante - 9 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: t5586
UTG+1: t6265
UTG+2: t7350
Hero (MP1): t5965
MP2: t3921
CO: t5477
BTN: t7879
SB: t3224
BB: t5149

Pre Flop: (t153) Hero is MP1 with J J

3 folds
Hero raises to t180
3 folds, SB calls t150
1 fold

Flop: (t483) 5 3 8 (2 players)

SB bets t540
cmitch ?????

What is your action?

a. Call. Why? Plan for rest of hand?
b. Fold. Why?
c. Raise. Why? How much? Plan for rest of hand?

I got a lot of good responses.

I really felt like the guy was on a draw or a pair and a draw. I was with the majority and decided to go ahead and raise around 3x his bet with the intention of calling a shove. He shoved and showed..........

QQ

I think Pokerfool must have been watching the hand since he put the guy on exactly QQ. :) - Maybe he should start playing a lot more mtts.

Heffmike had some pretty good arguments for flat calling, but in the end I think the result is the same. I like his thoughts on maximizing value.

"Devil's advocate here:

Maybe it's too weak/too smallball, but what's wrong with using position, flatting, and reevaluating on the turn?

I guess it's all about reads. Would he be smart enough to donk lead and bomb the pot with a big draw/hand here? If so, then he's jamming to your reraise and you're going to get it in for 50 BB flipping at best.

If he's a aggro muppet just trying to blow you off AK, because EVERYONE has AK when they raise preflop, why cut him off now by raising the flop? Let him hang himself on the turn when he whiffs and donks again with his club draw or 8x. Sure, you take the chance of letting him catch up, but maybe with this player that's not such a bad thing.

I just get the feeling that if you raise/shove this flop, he's never going to come correct with something you crush like TT/99, or spew with 98/77, but he'll have some donk two pair/trappy AA/KK/QQ/or Ac3c type of hand.

If we prefer to play JJ fast here, be prepared for a ton of variance."

I thought that this was an interesting hand because of my reads on the player. He seemed loose and frustrated, so I was willing to get all the money in the flop. I'm guessing that I might have played it a little different with no history on the player or if the player seemed really tight. I think that it could have gotten really interesting if he was twice as deep - would make it a tough decision between a flop call, raise/fold.

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments.