River raise with middle pair

[dsaxton]

Multitabling, so no information on this player, but given his play of the hand, it seems clear he's a donk. My thinking behind raising this river was that if I call and lose the pot, I would be very short-stacked and probably finish out of the money, so there is not much risk associated with raising and getting called by a better hand. However, it may allow me to win the pot when he folds an ace. Is this thinking sound, or should I just call?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

saw flop|saw showdown

UTG (t5975)
MP (t1595)
Hero (t2775)
SB (t850)
BB (t2305)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Q, Q.
UTG calls t200, 1 fold, Hero raises to t600, 2 folds, UTG calls t400.

Flop: (t1300) 8, A, 4 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks.

Turn: (t1300) 9 (2 players)
UTG bets t400, Hero calls t400.

River: (t2100) J (2 players)
UTG bets t400, Hero raises to t1750

[taipan168]

I would raise more preflop, either 800 to go or just shove it. If he's a donk he might well call your shove with a bunch of hands that you're ahead of. If he folds then you pick up 500 chips (almost 20% of your stack) with no risk.

Personally, once the ace flops I'm done with this hand. Sure, you fold the best hand some of the time and maybe I'm weak/tight, but with the two short stacks around (particularly SB with 850 chips) I think you can find a better spot than this. I think I would have avoided this tough decision by just shoving preflop though.

If you wanted to shove this at any point, I would shove the turn rather than the river since the board was double suited.

[dsaxton]

I would raise more preflop, either 800 to go or just shove it. If he's a donk he might well call your shove with a bunch of hands that you're ahead of. If he folds then you pick up 500 chips (almost 20% of your stack) with no risk.

My preflop raise size was actually a mistake due to multitabling. I didn't notice the limper right away and made my standard opening raise.

[orbital]

shove (due to the 500 chips) or fold. horrible spot to play post flop.

as played: one thing i learned from playing at ridiculously low level sngs is how to deal with the donks: never waste your time putting yourself to tough decisions against them. play it straight up unless your reads tell you better (when multitabling getting too many deep reads is pretty hard).
save those chips for a spot where you can be the agressor.

[ZenMike]

I don't know that I have enough experience to comment on the play of others, but for what it's worth... I'm assuming this is a low buy-in? I would think you need to decide on the turn to either be done with the hand or make your stand. If you think he's just trying to bully you with his stack, push over. If you think he was just taking a stab fold it then and leave yourself with some chips to get ITM.