[highlight] Check-raise or not?

donking:
+ hero has quite some immediate fold equity
- hero doesnt rep many strong hands on this kind of board, so villain (who is quite handsome, so ive heard) might be suspicious and call rather lightly (this might be somewhat true for x/r, too, but villain has to think about whether he wants to play for his whole stack in the latter scenario)
- villain folds all of his air
- villains range is rather uncapped (his preflop range - air - very strong (made) hands)
- there are very few turns that improve heroes hand and on any diamond, he might have the 2nd best (relative) hand (this is true for every line, thats why i think the more fold equity otf=the better). since villains range is rather uncapped, hero will have a hard time estimating his equity (vs villains range) on many turns.
+ at least hero has the initiative ott and reps a stronger range than villain and might get quite some folds (if he decides to 2nd barrel) if villain doesnt improve ott.

x/c:
- hero obviously has 0 fold equity
+ hero keeps the pot small with a mediocre made hand+mediocre draw (villain rarely has a better made hand AND a better draw otf)
- villains range is completely uncapped
- as mentioned before, there are very few turns that improve heroes hand, so unless he wants to turn his hand into a (semi)bluff and donk on straight turns, he often has to check again and therefore will face a tough decision ott quite often

x/r:
+ hero has decent fold equity
+ villain has to fold quite some Jx hands (even some AJx hands), which have a lot of equity against heroes hand
+ hero gets 1 bet from villains air
+ when called, villains range is more defined than if hero donked
- villain might check behind and gain equity on some turns
- turn decisions will be tough in several spots becuz hero now has to decide whether he wants to play for his whole stack with a potentially marginal hand (if unimproved), but becuz villains range is more defined, estimating heroes equity will be easier

i dont think this board is good for donking in general. imo there arent many hands villain will check back with (compared to a QJ7 board, for example). therefore, hero might want to opt for a x/r instead of donking with his strong hands and might have problems balancing a donking range. please correct me if im wrong, its just a(n educated) guess.

so as u might guess, id prefer x/r

if hero had 2 (different) overcards to the 5, instead of 88, i think id like x/c best becuz id hate to x/r/f or x/r/broke

I think that your hand has some playability but is it not better to 3bet pre continue on the flop. Is that not succesful more often than not as opposed to taking a passive line OOP if we x/c?

I feel like a x/r would be best. But it is likely to be x/r, b/f if we're raised. Very awkward with the J high flush being our draw.

I think that your hand has some playability but is it not better to 3bet pre continue on the flop. Is that not succesful more often than not as opposed to taking a passive line OOP if we x/c?

I feel like a x/r would be best. But it is likely to be x/r, b/f if we're raised. Very awkward with the J high flush being our draw.

I voted Quit poker, seems like nice option here

Hero's hand is crappy, so I'm just going to keep pot small here. If we check-raise it's a bluff and we want a fold. If villain calls and turn is something else than K, J or 8 we're not happy, pappy.

Then it would seem like villain is on a draw, but when our hand is so weak we have no idea should we keep on betting for value, or bluff, or what to do if FD or SD hit turn/river.

Nice discussion. Hero has three options, as check-fold seems pretty bad. First of all why did hero call preflop? As the hand is far from great (or even a good one) I don't think hero can call just for the hand value. So to make this call profitable, hero has to win some pots without having the best hand (bluff). Se when we actually hit something, folding is terrible. The options are then donk, check-call and check-raise.

Donking

The problem in donking is that it isolates us against a strong range. And we don't get ANY value from his air. Let's use PokerJuice to figure out how often he actually folds here. He opens from the BTN, so let's assume his range is 60%. On this flop he will call any flush draw, any J+ (J, overpairs, 2 pairs and sets), and any straight draw of 8+ outs (OESD and wraps). He has those 59% of the times. (if his range preflop is 90%, he has those 57% of times, so not a big difference)

So 40% of the times hero wins the pot right away. Donk of 3,5bb has to work around 40% of the times so hero is not making an instant profit here. Against the calling range hero has 53% equity on average. So he doesn't really crush his opponent. And being out of position and having a bad visibility probably means that villain can make better decisions with his range than hero on the turn/river. So donk itself is not immediate profit and playing turn/river is most likely slightly -EV, it seems that donk is not a great option.

Check-calling

When we check, we can assume that villain bets most of his range as the board is quite good for cbetting and we don't have history of hero check-raising a ton (which could make him check some of his hands). Against his whole range hero has average of 64% equity, so it seems good to keep his range wide. The problem is that once hero check-calls, his hand looks like a weakish made hand or a draw. Pretty much exactly what he has. Hero also has 0 nut outs, although J or 8 are quite close to it.

How is hero going to play the turn, if J or 8 comes? Check? Then villain either checks behind with hands that has some equity against hero or barrels and hero gets one bet as value (as villain folds to a raise and doesn't barrel river often). So that 10% of times that J or 8 comes, it looks good for hero (although he can't get 2 streets of value). K is also nice, so let's say that 7 outs help hero, which comes 16% of times.

Diamonds are nice, although what will hero do if he hits his flush? Check-raise is overplaying, check-call opens the hand quite face up. If villain checks, we don't know if he checked Qhigh flush or tries to draw for full house. What ever he is checking, almost 1/4 times the board pairs and hero can't valuebet his flush. Or if the board doesn't pair, can hero valuebet Jhigh flush on the river? So we see that the flush draw is tricky, as it's hard to get value (often just one street) and there are some reversed implied odds (when villain has Q or Khigh flush and takes more passive line).

So around 35% of the times turn helps hero. What about those 65% of turns that are blanks for hero? Check-fold? Or keep calling and hoping? With check-calling the flop, we are hoping for a lot of things. We hope that our outs come, and if they do we hope we are ahead of our opponent. If blank comes we hope that opponent doesn't bet big, but if he does we can call and hope all of our outs are alive. And we hope the opponent doesn't have higher flush draw, 2 pairs or AJ. Lot of hoping.

Check-Raise

If we check and villain bets 3,5bb, we can raise to 9bb and give ourselves 50/50 odds. So if opponent folds more than 50% of the times, we make immediate profit. Imagine yourself here and someone check-raises you on this flop. What hands can you call that raise with? I would think that any set, J+ with a flush draw, OESD+ with a flush draw and any wrap. Villain has one of those around 14% of times. Meaning he folds 86% of the times.

If opponent re-raises, hero can happily fold. If he calls, his range is capped to draws most likely.

So what is your plan for turn/river if villain calls? (when you decide to check raise).

I would like to fold preflop, then I don't get to write how I play a janky hand

Originally posted by SeagalSteven
So what is your plan for turn/river if villain calls? (when you decide to check raise).

Barrel any pairing turn (non-diamond), K and 8. If diamond comes, check and see what the opponent does.