Here's a hand from the live game I played last night.

Blinds are 15/30. I'm on the button with JJ. The two deepest stacks, by far, are me and the BB, with about 900 chips each (tournament started with 250 each and 1/2 blinds).

It folds around to me, and I raise to 100. Big blind calls.

Flop AT5 rainbow. I'm expecting that he checks, I bet 150, and either he folds, or he min-raises (since he seems to like to do that) and I fold.

Instead, he leads out for 100. What's he got?

Some background:

* Four members of the group (me, my sister, her fiancee, and another online ~20-30$ SNG shark who plays ridiculously tight) are there almost every game. The tournaments usually have 6-7 people, with the remaining 2-3 coming from a group of maybe 8 people who play with us semi-regularly. Sometimes more of them show up and we have bigger games.

* I have come in first place in something like 50% of the tournaments I've played with this group, no exaggeration. I can't attribute that only to skill, as that's a completely ridiculous stat. I've been very lucky with races, and have flopped a disproportionate number of monsters.

* K., the villain here, is one of the people who comes infrequently. I think I've played him 3 times before this. He's neither great nor terrible... he was a bit tight-weak the first time, but is feeling more comfortable in the group and loosening up his play, for better or worse.

* Last big pot I played against him was in the previous tournament. He had A high and thought he could push me off some marginal hand, but I busted him with two pair.

* The two big pots I'd played so far this game both resulted in me stacking someone, once with bottom set vs. a LAG with middle pair top kicker, and once with K8 on a turn of K8x + 8. He had JJ, put me on a K when I flat called the flop, and thought he could represent an 8 and bluff me off it (that was the extremely tight shark, presumably trying to use his image, but unlucky in his choice of moment).

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I think this is one of those hands where any play can be correct, depending on your read. I can see a fold, I can see a call, I can see a raise. I don't like any of them, but there's no fourth option in poker.

I ended up folding. My hunch was that he had A5, thought I might have AJ-AK, and wanted to get the money in right now. I think he also knows I'm willing to check behind with draws sometimes and didn't want to have to play any guessing games if a face card came on the turn. My play might seem hopelessly weak, but it paid off in the end. Although my stack dwindled to about 400 due to cold cards, I finally tripled up with AA (vs. JJ vs. JK, woohoo) and stacking the remaining players was easy after that.

Other possibilities, though, were that he had KQ/KJ/QJ, or that he had a weak A and was trying to find out if it was good. I'm not 100% sure he would have had the discipline to fold it if I pushed, in the latter case. Probably more like 50/50.

I find - online, at least - a lot of these donkleads are hands with equity that would rather win the pot now, i.e. on that board something like KQ, A7, KT etc

I actually make a habit of raising heads-up donkbets because they'll fold so often.

Originally Posted by MJPerry

I find - online, at least - a lot of these donkleads are hands with equity that would rather win the pot now, i.e. on that board something like KQ, A7, KT etc

I actually make a habit of raising heads-up donkbets because they'll fold so often.

I agree entirely with this. The trouble here is the situation. There are 250x9 = 2250 chips in the game (7 people + 2 rebuys). With five people left in the game, he and I each have about 800 chips. I said 900 in the original post, but that would mean the other 3 people only had 450 chips between them, and they weren't quite that short. We must have had more like 800, and the shorties about 200 each.

We're both in such dominant position, it's just not worth risking the whole tournament on second pair. If I push, he's probably folding a T or a gutshot draw, but like I said, I don't know if he's going to make the donkey call with A7 or not. Definitely, if push and I'm called, I'm beat, and drawing very thin.

I suppose I could donk it right back in his face and mini-raise. It might be one of those rare situations where it's correct... might extract value from a T or a draw, convince a weak A to check it down from here, and tell me right away if he has a big hand. With 600 in the pot if he calls and 500 left behind, I can still just barely get away from it if he pushes, since I only have 2 outs if I'm behind.