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Donk Bettor Got Me
I’m seeing more donking lately. Some people may have figured out that the player pool generally doesn’t have a good grip on responding to donk bets.
The following hand crippled me in a $6.60 MTT on ACR:
I had no information on Villain. He had been very active but I had an insufficient sample size on him to use his HUD numbers.
Yatahay Network – 325/650 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 8 players
UTG: 146.69 BB
UTG+1: 74.71 BB
MP: 76.92 BB
MP+1: 78.57 BB
Hero (CO): 100.27 BB
BTN: 63.17 BB
SB: 74.57 BB
BB: 121.4 BB
8 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 2.48 BB) Hero has Qc Qs
fold, UTG+1 raises to 2.2 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 7 BB, fold, fold, fold, UTG+1 calls 4.8 BB
Flop : (16.48 BB, 2 players) 5d 4h 2s
UTG+1 bets 5.28 BB, Hero calls 5.28 BB
Turn : (27.04 BB, 2 players) Kc
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets 20.28 BB, UTG+1 raises to 62.31 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 42.03 BB
River : (151.65 BB, 2 players) 6s
UTG+1 shows 4c 5c (Two Pair, Fives and Fours)
(Pre 22%, Flop 73%, Turn 82%)
Hero shows Qc Qs (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 78%, Flop 27%, Turn 18%)
UTG+1 wins 151.65 BB
I had Villain on a bluff on the turn, or maybe a pocket pair like 66-JJ. AA, KK, and AK would have 4-bet preflop. A set would check-raise or check-call. KQs or any other K that flats the 3-bet OOP preflop is simply not donking out. He has no K5, K4, or K2 in his range. I couldn’t find any 2P in his range, because those hands are (in theory) not flatting the 3-bet preflop or even opening UTG+1. After some thought I called his jam.
After I was done playing for the day and doing my off-table work I checked his stats on Sharkscope and found that he hemorrhages money.
Did I read this hand incorrectly? What went wrong?
Is this just another horrible beat story that causes eyerolls?
I recently went up against a different player who donked a dry ace flop from the blinds in the first hand of the tournament. I observed that player for many hands and he donks every kind of flop. And he was doing it way too often to have connected with that many flops. Many of those donks had to be bluffs. I have to confess I was a bit confused about how to navigate those spots.
I think dealing with donk bets and lead bets is a science onto itself in NLHE. And it’s well worth studying and discussing.
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4 Replies
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I think your response to the flop donk was just fine. It’s the turn that’s an issue.
There is zero value to betting that turn. He’ll fold all his bluffs and call or x/r with better hands. You’re targeting a very small portion of his range for value, and even some of those might fold to a bet.
I don’t know how often low stakes players x/shove turns as a bluff in 3b pots, but I’m guessing it doesn’t happen very often at all. You just got sucked into not wanting to fold your hand.
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That makes sense. What better hands were folding? What worse hands were calling? I didn’t have a bet. At the time I got so lost in the weeds of trying to range him that I didn’t see the big picture.
Not only that, but my impulse/instinct is to attack donk bets. That’s a heuristic that I need to adjust.
There might even be a form of tilt involved. Donk bet tilt. “What? You’re donking me?! This is MY pot not yours, and now I’m gonna punish you for your bad poker!”
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Donkbets are definitely annoying, which could be why players are using them more these days. I ran into one myself in a tourney yesterday, when I raised AJ and the BB triple-barrel donked on an A85xx board. I just called down and he showed 88 for the flopped set.
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In tournaments we don’t get enough of a sample size to determine what the donk bettor’s range is. There could be several different ranges, based on what he is thinking.
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