I was watching a Stinger HU video before and a hand occured where he 3-bet 9To 200BBs deep, the flop came TJxr and he check called a 2/3 pot bet, the turn came an off suit blank and he check folded to another 2/3 pot bet.

Now, from watching HU videos a lot and from playing myself, i find that this situation occurs a fair bit when 3-betting OOP, and i'm wondering, against good/aggressive players, is playing this way with marginal hands OOP too easy to take advantage of?

Like, say in this example, given that Stinger would rarely check this flop with TPGK or 2-Pair+, check/calling makes our hand look pretty much like what it is no? Check/calling imo puts us in a really bad spot on later streets because he can now catch whatever card he needs to beat us, value bet really thin, semi bluff with a draw, or even bluff with complete air given that he has a good idea of what our range is.

There are of course counter measures to this, but i think check/calling in this kind of spot means that it's really hard for him to make a bad decision on the turn because for every time we call when he's bluffing, we're going to be calling when he's value betting to, so it's really hard for us too make the correct decision because but less so for him. I suppose one way to put it would be that our range is generaly pretty small and hence easy to play against while his is usually a lot wider making hence being tough for us to play against. If that makes any sense.

Another trend i've noticed in a few HU videos is that the instructor rarely donk-bets the flop (i acctualy may be wrong on this, but i can't remember any particular spots where they have) and often almost auto-checks the turn and calling the flop OOP.

There's a video on Pokersavy of Ansky playing Poopers HU, and i think the way Pooper's often lead the flop after calling a raise PF made him really tricky to play against and gave him a lot more options how to play his hands/balance ranges as a general strategy.

I'm not really sure how to put this, but i think that a good player could probably exploit a weaker player more by incorporating donk-betting into his strategy in a balanced way. Like if he weights his donk betting ranges well with complete air/monsters/semi-bluffs/marginal hands, i think it forces the button to make more mistakes because it's a really tough spot to play against someone who's donk betting a wide range.

I'm not saying that either of these two points are completely wrong or that a different line as standard would work a lot better, but i think it's a really interesting thing to discuss and would like to hear other people's opinions on this.

Stinger can do whatever the hell he wants in that spot with T9 because you basically have to give him credit and assume that he's balancing ranges well enough to be c/cing draws and very strong made hands in addition to sometimes floating or calling with marginal made hands.

As for donk betting, most of the vids that you see are at lower stakes. The videos made at higher stakes tend to be made against better players and donking often puts you in a tough spot becuase you're now using backdoor aggression to initiate action and then you'll be playing OOP for the rest of the hand with the lead against a player who you're often not sure what they have. That's the main reason that most good players don't donk is because it often puts them in tougher spots OOP than they normally would be.

When playing against bad players, it's mostly useless. If a player doesn't c-bet too often or is very straight forward, then donking into him is great becuase he often won't bluff raise you and just starts playing his hand more.

I probably donk like 1% of the time or something comically small like that. Sometimes it's air, sometimes it's a made hand and sometimes a draw. Everything is about balance and adjusting to your opponents.

Never donking is not an exploitable trend since you actually give away less about your range if you check EVERY flop when you're OOP in a raised pot.

Also, Stinger's play in that 3 bet pot, while in this instance his hand looked exactly like what it was, is probably not easily exploited either since I'm sure he will play draws, sets and overpairs the same way as well.

Agreed 100%