do you have one?

what are you thoughts about donking vs 3 hypothetical and oversimplified player types:


1) passive, stationy fish

2) aggro stationy fish

3) decent aggro taggish reg

I have been thinking about how to integrate this into my game but my thoughts are basic. Was wondering if others had more advanced thoughts the dos and donts of donking.

maybe this question is to general to be useful. if so please disregard.

As far as sizing goes you should create a scale in your mind and then try and properly adjust based off those differences.How wide do u think your opponents range should be?How well does the turn card help you in comparisen to your opponent.And how low are the cards on the board.Perhaps the lower the board the more reverse implied odds and thus maybe we should up our sizing abit and turn those reverse implied odds into fold equity to a certain extent.The more the turn card helps us in comparison to our opponent means that perhaps we should bet bigger.And the wider our opponents range perhaps the bigger we should bet aswell.The higher the cards on the board the less i expect my opponent to be betting.KQ8-CC flop,turn K.If we should donk lead here then i would choose a smaller sizing compared to most if not all other turn donk lead spots.like maybe 1/6th pot.Now lets say the Q pairs the board instead of the king,we can now bump our sizing to maybe 1/4th pot.And if the 8 pairs the board perhaps 1/3rd pot.Now lets say the board is K65-CC flop,turn K we maybe should bet 1/5th pot because as i said before the lower the board the more i expect my opponent to bet,so we bet 1/5th pot instead of 1/6th.If the 6 pairs the board and this is where it gets tricky.I expect my opponents range to be wider because the board is lower and thus i must bet bigger,I also feel we should bet ever so slightly more perhaps because the lower the board the more reverse implied odds from overs,and perhaps we would rather turn some of that into fold equity.Yet on K65 when the 6 pairs i dont think it helps our range as much in comparison to our opponents then say the Q pairing on the turn after CC'ing the flop on a KQ8 board.And thus that will make us want to lower our sizing abit.so perhaps we still end up around 1/4th pot or something between 1/4th-1/5th pot for an optimal sizing.and if the 5 pairs the turn on a K65 board then perhaps 40% to half pot is best because i dont expect my opponent to bet more then maybe two different 5hands here like 5A, or perhaps 54 57.Make sure to note all these donk leading spots are when the turn pairs the board.hope this helps.

also note that i simplified the sizings.I actually think the adjustments should be more like 2 to 5% differences,instead of 5 to 8%.And i dont know wether donking is good or if it is then in all the spots i mentioned like KQ8-CC flop,turn Q

board 236 flop check check-turn 8 we check they bet we call.river A.we donk lead perhaps because we dont have many 2,3's or 4's so we have to call with more ace highs on the turn which might give us enough strength to donk lead.

Ugh I assume you are talking about donking the flop which is something I've always struggled with. I think I just sometimes donk with semibluffs that aren't good enough to c/c or c/r on connected boards that are gunna be checked back a lot.

No idea how to construct flop donking ranges vs those various player types lol. Live pokerrrrrr.

Adding some value/protection hands against someone who checks back a lot seems pretty good too. Maybe it isn't necessary at all to have a donking range against someone who cbets a normal amount?

Not (m)any flops where reasonable BB flatting ranges, at normal+ stack sizes, have an equity and/or polarity advantage in HUNL, so no.

i feel like this sentence is rich in information but i cant fully decipher it. would you mind stating this in slightly different terms?

The initiative is sort of an illusory concept: you won't be able to find a Law of Poker entry stating "The player who put in the largest raise pre is obligated to take the betting lead, and any violators will be imprisoned immediately".

Usually whomever has an advantage in some combination of equity (both showdown and ex-SD) and polarity (i.e., "nut / near-nut hands", the root word being "polarization" -- this one usually matters more than equity) should take the betting lead.

Imagine you were playing HUNL with weird stipulations where the BTN had to open 2-3x (or whatever) with any two suited cards and any pocket pair and fold everything else and the BB had to flat with [8-A][8-A] (any two cards eight and up) and fold everything else. The BB would gleefully start donking on flops like AK9r, but wouldn't dare on 542tt.

In HUNL in SRPs, the BB is usually around equal or worse on most flops wrt polarity, and being IP confers the BB an ex-sd equity edge so it's not like the BB is exhilarated over having a 52-48 showdown equity edge or anything, and balancing a donking and checking range in ~symmetrical situations is a hell lot of work for very tenuous/marginal gain. So donking on the flop isn't really a "thing" yet, except exploitatively against fish I guess. On the turn, however . . .

i dont think its something you should spend a lot of time working on. it doesnt make much sense and its extremely tough to legitimately play it well and balanced, while also having a well designed checking range. the only time i do it is against fish who will not cbet and im having trouble getting enough $ in the pot for my hand strength.

nice post RA

+1 to this thread and its conclusions.

I have donked river very small and had some weak regs just spaz out and raise huge.

Example @ NL50

I had T8s - Villian has KJo he raises $1.5 i call

Flop is 4T2 - he bets $2 and I call

Turn is a Q - he bets $4.5 and i call

River is an 8 and I donk a weak $5.5 - this puts him in a tough spot as I could be doing this with a weak hand as a blocker and a weak reg will try and raise you out here if you have history or you are against a tilting villain. Any ways he raised to $25 and I called and was a pretty interesting hand.

The problem is if you donk there and get raised, you're going to be raised by an uncapped polarised range where your range figures to be somewhat capped given you don't have your 3 betting range (so no TT or QQ or QTs), you didn't raise the flop and you didn't raise the turn. It's not like he makes a bad play by raising you. Perhaps he should choose hands that don't potentially block your draws but at any rate having a bluffing range there is fine considering he will also raise you with some strong value hands too.

It sounds like you are being results orientated with that hand.

you could say that about any hand a player donks. Are you going to fold 2 pair in my spot and play it differently?

Well some boards are better for your range than others. So it's not exactly the same. On some boards you are capped pretty high and have lots of strong hands. On others you're capped lower and have more medium strength hands.

Donk betting can be useful vs. some opponents. I should probably use it more vs opponents that check back often.
Vs villians that cbet a high % of flops, a donk betting range is pretty pointless. Developing a solid c/r range will be more beneficial.