ZlotZ

Allow me to disagree, I believe we should check behind the turn.

Your hand is definetly not a monster on this board. You are losing to 88, 44, A4, and all suited diamonds connectors. You are beating smaller Ax hands, mostly AJ and AT, but even these are unlikely limps (usually they raise pre). If you bet the turn, it's of course impossible to make one of the hands that beat you fold. On the other hand, it is very likely that you'll get folds from hands you beat. Being in the villain's shoes, the board is too scary to continue with a hand like AT out of position vs a guy (you) who's double barrelling this dangerous board and can hurt your stack. A9 or worse, even more difficult to continue. Yes sometimes people call with much worse in this spot, but many times they fold too. So all being weighted I believe your reasons to bet (make better hands fold/make worst hands call) are not so strong on the turn.

Being deepstacked we should abide by the "big hand <-> big pot" motto. Your top pair top kicker is definitely worth 2 barrels of value of value on this board, but not 3. I believe you should check turn and get another street of value on the river. By checking, you disguise the strenght of your hand and make Ax hands believe they are winning by the river, and they will likely bet for value, which you will call and win. If they don't bet, you will bet and they will call, it's much easier for them to call on the river when they're closing the action.

By checking turn and betting river (or calling if he bets), you are still losing 2 streets of value to flushes/full houses (and not risking losing more, since you should fold to a river checkraise), but you are garanteed to win 2 streets of value vs weaker Ax. If you bet the turn, you risk losing more than 2 streets of value vs flushes/fh, and may loose the chance to extract the 2 streets of value vs Ax.

To complement this, I recommend the book Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker by Jonathan Little. In his book he explains this concept very well, checking back turn for pot control/deception is part of his small ball strategy.

Hi, thanks for reply here and also on my own topic!

Going a little out of topic for the actual hand, but extending the "raise vs donklead" concept that we're discussing, I really think you are missing out by not having a raise vs donklead range in general. The donkleaders just fold too much vs a raise in these lowstakes, making the raise a very +EV move if you can do it in a balanced way, and most of this EV is coming from the huge fold equity that you'll have.

Although you could try doing it in an unbalanced way (raising only air to realize fold equity, calling with actual showdown like AA to better realize your hand rank equity), I'd prefer doing it in the balanced way (even in low stakes where balance doesn't matter as much), simply because I think that is how a top notch player should play, even though I'm not one yet, I'm training and pushing myself to be at a higher level than the one I'm currently at.

Yes, shove pre, a lot in the pot for taking, you surely have fold equity, and great equity when called with a lot of dead money on the pot. The only hand that crushes you is AA, and you have a blocker for that. Even vs KK you won't be such a big dog with the dead money on the pot. If one of them have AA, you should not let that tilt you and affect your future plays. Figure their ranges and do the math, and I'm sure you'd have a great +EV shove.

Being deepstacked I would raise his donklead on the flop. It is possible to get value out of AT of other strong Tx on the flop, and allow us to pot control vs his most likely upcoming check on the turn, disguising our hand by river, allowing him to "value bet" worst hands on the river.

I would go with the hand on the flop if he decides to 3bet on the flop.

Another reason for the raising the donklead is for balance, since I raise a lot of donkleads while holding 2 overs (ex: AK, AQ) in this spot. I just don't respect donkleads. But having no pair I'd fold for a 3bet on the flop.

As played, I agree with the call on the turn. We cannot raise the turn because it would turn our AA into a bluff, and a bad bluff because Tx or full house is never folding, and anything else (which we beat) would be folding. We cannot fold the turn, it would be too weak, if you're folding in this spot then you'd be too exploitable, everyone would make you fold too many hands bluffing you all day.

Having called the turn. The 7 on the river completes the J9, which is one of villain's likely holding, and of course we are still being beaten by Tx. Plus, having seen our call on the turn, the villain should clearly know that we have some good showdown value, so on the villain's POV this would not be a good spot for him to attempt a stone bluff. We should fold the river.