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1bb Donk Leads
So I’ve often heard the advice to treat 1bb donk leads like checks and just proceed accordingly, but I think it still gets a little tricky in spots. A very common line I’ve seen from weaker players is 1bb, 1bb, jam. Anyway, here is a hand I played against such a player on Ignition. Curious for your takes.
We are ITM with 25bb. There are 33 players left. We open KsJh to 2bb from HJ. BB (off 40bb) defends. We only have 100 hands on this player, but we’ve already labeled them as quite passive. They have a 50/5 VPIP/PFR. In hands they’ve continued, they’ve often led/donked 1bb a ton. Flop is Kc7s3h. BB donk leads to 1bb. This is where the “just play it like a check” advice starts to fray for me. I’d generally cbet this dry, disconnected board small, but with this donk lead, I think I want to go big. Versus a ck, I’d bet something like 1.5-2bb. If I just was “treating it like a check,” I’d raise to something like 3bb. But I think I want to go even bigger against this move and profile when I have value. Especially since they have been so passive and active. Your thoughts on the flop here?
IRL, we bet 5bb and get called. 15.5bb in the middle. We have 19 behind. Turn is the 9c and BB bets 1bb again. Okay, now what? Since it is common to see 1bb, 1bb, jam, do we just call and then plan to call a lot of river jams? Do we raise something smaller? Do we jam? If my opponent had check called flop and checked here, I’d be betting again to a not all-in sizing, so if I’m treating these bets like a check, do I follow that plan? I’m not sure if this was a mistake, and it is part of the reason I’m asking, but I elected to call this turn bet.
River is the Th and V jams. We’re losing to a lot now, but we kinda knew this was coming. What would you do now? And where would you have played this hand differently before this river?
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2 Replies
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Really interesting hand….I’m not a tournament guy, but I have faced lots of 1bb bets in cash games.
I think on flop I like a smaller raise to the 1bb donk, there are no obvious draws we want to charge and we are ahead a lot with our top pair. At 25bb it wouldnt be too bad to stack off, but we don’t need to get there yet, we can get value from smaller pairs and backdoor stuff.
On turn, I don’t really like the call (feels like a check back if v had not donked the 1bb). With a flush draw now available, I want to charge those draws to see a river, and I don’t want to encourage river bluffs. I think this is the street to size up to give draws a bad price and charge pairs lower than a K.
If we had raised both flop and turn and then V jams river, I think its an easier fold as we should have priced out many draws and its a bet that is targeting top pair type hands to call.
As played I’m more inclined to call the river jam without any more V reads or info. I am just worried we encouraged bluffs with our turn line and now are at top of range to defend. If we were a lot deeper (e.g. 50bb+) I can see a fold b/c real people don’t stack off light for deep that often.
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I ran a report in PT4. In the last 5000 tournament hands that I have played 560 times there was a 1bb donk bet. 240 of which went to a showdown. The results are all over the board. Some players will do this with a set, or top pair. Others will do this with a pocket pair below top pair or with two overcards. I can’t find a significant pattern to this strategy. Without knowing what this player’s strategy is, I would play this very cautiously. He could be bluffing but if you never fold to a bluff you’re not folding enough. It is a tough spot and a tough decision especially with the 50/5 stats he could have just about anything here. I would fold and look for a better spot to get the money in the middle.
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