Hey all,

As I continue to move up in stakes where I am facing much more aware opponents, I’ve found myself leveraging a lot of range vs range spots. Accordingly, I’ve been working on incorporating donk leads in certain spots. Two scenarios where I’ve been experimenting:

5-10 NL 1.5k effective 9 handed

UTG+1 opens to 30. Folds to me I call in BB with standard range.

Flop ($65)
456hhx

Not a good board for UTG range. He retains overpairs but I can leverage this low dynamic board to get a lot of folds from overcards and A high type hands on the flop with bluffs and I can get overpairs to put another bet when in I’m ahead where they are checking range. What sizing to use here? I’ve been using a little over half pot but I think I can accomplish the same thing with a 1/3 bet sizing. Thoughts?

Another spot where I’m experimenting with leads:

5-10 NL 1.5k effective 9 handed

Folds to me I raise HJ with standard range to 30. BU raise $100. I call.

Flop K67hhx.

Check bu bet $75 I call.

Turn 8h

Pretty bad card for BU 3b range. I think I want to lead this card with some straights, flushes, 2 pairs, and bluffs in a spot where BU checks back range a lot. What sizing to use here? I think this is a much more polar spot but I feel like the donk lead is inherently more polar and therefore the sizing doesn’t need to be huge. There’s $350 in the pot and I would often use a size like $150 or $175. And follow up with overbet sizing on rivers a lot of the time. Thoughts?


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Both small, like 1/3-1/4 imo. Tbh you don't sound like you completely understand why you're donking so I wouldn't recommend doing it until you study it some more. It doesn't give you a lot of edge anyway.

I'm not an expert on the topic either, but I try to give my take on these spots. In the first one we have nut advantage and maybe not an equity advantage with our overall range, but we have proportionately less misses than villain. This little over half pot is just in the middle so it doesn't really highlight any of our two advantages. Small bet says 'I know you have lots of missed two over type hands and your overpairs can't really start piling chips in, so it's going to be really hard for you to defend properly'. It's a very nice, sensible play I think. I've never seen anything like it so I guess there's something wrong with it but intuitively it also makes sense to just bomb it over pot and rep 2p+. Ofc we don't get to do that too often, but we can 1/4 range. This ~60% just doesn't accomplish much, it's a comfortable call for pairs, fds and two overs with bdfd and they might not even overfold doing that.

One more thing, the average 5/10 reg isn't exactly a GTO bot, they should cbet rarely if ever here, but in practice they might just autocbet a bunch. We basically donk because we don't want them to check back and realize, if they do us the favour and reopen flop relatively often, then we're way better off just checking range and x/r tons (50%+ easily vs autocbettors).

About the second one, I think you overestimate your advantage here. The biggest difference between hero's and villain's range is that hero has much much less air because of calling the flop rangebet. V has AK, AA and KK, but those aren't that important here. Otherwise it's pretty equal, both have flushes, some straights, some tp, but neither have many sets. So hero should try to take advantage of having less garbage hands like QJcc, A4dd etc, thus I'd use the small sizing. The logic is the same as the first one, villain has lots of hands that have some equity but don't want to put any money in, so we don't let him check back. A small bet accomplishes that perfectly, no reason to go bigger, it just makes his life easier.

[QUOTE=crackedaa;58022910] Tbh you don't sound like you completely understand why you're donking so I wouldn't recommend doing it until you study it some more.

Kind of a weird thing to say to someone who is acknowledging a lack of experience and information in a certain subject and asking for help from others... Regardless, I don't feel like I need to memorize solver outputs before I start experimenting with using the concept in game. Appreciate the actual contributions though. I agree the small sizing is what most of our range wants to use in these spots.

[QUOTE=MogFish;58023078] I think in this instance, you probably should look for certain solver donk spots and memorize a bit. And utilize those situations and look for them or very similar.

No need to learn via jumping in deep end when the info is so easy to attain.

IÂ’d also probably just start with turn donks. Flop donks are much much tougher. If you donÂ’t balance your range very well, youÂ’re going to face a lot of overbets from aware opponents and youÂ’ll be in a ton of tough spots without a lot of info.

Most players could never donk a flop and not lose any EV in long run.

All you're doing with these donkbets is making worse hands fold and better hands call, the opposite of what you want to be doing. Your range estimates are just pure guesses beacuse you're OOP so you really have no idea what they have until they act. "456hh is a bad flop for UTG, so I donk... oh **** he called, guess I was way off. Maybe he has AA, or he mixed it up with 78, or 44, or a pure float because I keep doing this. I have no idea what's going on now since his range is completely uncapped".

What's eventually going to start happening is people will start raising your donkbets which is going to put you in a world of hurt. You are much better off taking a x/c line to pick off bluffs, balance your TP's and occasionally x/r'ing your big draws or sets. This is going to make people much more wary of cbetting against you now that your checks dont necessarily mean weakness, whereas your donkbets almost always do.

Lastly, just quit playing out of position. You cant bend the table to your will because you want to play 100% of your range at all times. This is the penalty you pay for acting first; having no idea where you're at in the hand.

I'm sorry but this is just one trainwreck of an analysis. First of all how do you know if hero makes worse fold and better call, he didn't even state an actual hand. Btw it's not bad to fold out stuff like JT with a 1/3 bet in hand one with A5 or something similar, he has position and 6 outs, why would you want him to realize equity for free?

Not knowing exactly where you're at is precisely the way poker works, I don't understand your ranting about maybe being beat. The same happens in every other line too unless you have the nuts. They might have a better hand, they might not.

We have tons of good hands in both scenarios, we fold some for sure vs raise, but it's not like they can run us over.

The notion that range estimates are just pure guesses is among the dumbest things I've heard about poker, it's stuff that complete fish say at the tables. What are we even doing thinking about hands if anyone could have anything?

How do you 'quit playing oop'? I despise playing oop as much as anyone, but calling from BB vs 3x open or flatting a 3x BTN 3b 150bb deep are clearly the best options with many many hands. Are you just folding your hands out of turn when someone ip to you enters the pot or what?

Lastly, the whole point of leading is to not let them check back, because we expect them to usually do that (it's just a pure guess I know). So we can't x/c or x/r our big hands, because we don't face bets.

I certainly didn't mean to insult you, I just try to say it like I see it, because that's the most beneficial imo. Anyway definitely don't memorize solver outputs, it's a waste of time especially for a live player. What is useful instead is looking at the output and trying to understand the logic, why it is doing what it's doing. You can apply learnt concepts in a variety of spots.

The plays you described looks like hero's thinking 'I've seen it somewhere that I'm supposed to have leads here and I kind of like my hand so let me lead a sizing that feels comfortable and freestyle until the end of the hand'. Trying playing these lines while learning on the fly just leads to misplays (this thought process I described is pure old school handplaying for example) and it isn't even very educational. You would need thousands of hands to figure it out yourself to at least a basic extent and you play ~2 hands like this a week in live poker.

The main upside of playing these is that people have no clue how to react. If you also have no clue then it makes very little sense to me to go into freestyle territory. Not to mention that there's a nonzero chance a 5/10 reg actually has a clue what to do, or at least can exploit glaring mistakes you probably make. That's why I said I wouldn't recommend starting with experimenting in your main game.

Maybe we should always jam preflop, they can cant call unless we're already beat.

Maybe you should always go to BBV with your sorry trolling attempts.

Totally fair. My interest in incorporating leads actually comes from solver outputs (and also seeing other good players incorporate them). I think they can be super useful and take regs out of comfortable lines where they are in control. So, yes, that is exactly what I’m trying to do, understand why the solver is using a specific hand to donk for a specific size.

I certainly like the turn donk as an easier to utilize option (as opposed to the flop donk), especially when considering the live player tendency to waaaaay over cbet flops. Accordingly, I’d rather check raise flops more often. The turn donk is interesting to me because you can identify spots where we are super unlikely to face a bet from our opponent and exploit that.


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Super interesting topic glad you posted it, it's definitely a strategy that solvers use that humans generally do not. I'm not going to claim to be an expert so here goes my analysis

Hand 1- Solvers usually like to donk in scenerios closer to hand 1 where you are BB, the flop is low rainbow and a strait is possible. In this situation I think donking can be a good play b/c most of villain hands are overcards. If the flop were something like 236r I would like a small donk w/a hand like 87, 98, T9 etc b/c 1) button is likely to have 2 overcards 2) you can't call a bet even though you have pretty significant equity and 3) you can clean up some of your equity with a bet if you have a hand like 78 b/c villain is more likely to float with a hand like A8 or KQ and fold hands likeT8 or 98 if you donk cleaning up some of your outs. Understand that button will also likely float wide on a small flop donk so you would likely need to follow this up with bigger turn bet to get villain to fold. I would also avoid donking boards w/2 of the same suit b/c that should give villain more reasons to see the river and your goal would be to take this down on the turn unimproved

Hand 2 - your correctly figured, that this is a polar bet and so you need to bet big if you are going to pull this off. This is a tough spot to donk b/c you don't have much of a range advantage as both you and villain should have similar amounts of flushes in their hand and villain is more likely to the Ah b/c he would 3 bet w/hands like AA and Ahkx which you would not raise but would 4 bet. I don't think the fact that you have more 2 pair or sets in your range matters much b/c you cc the flop and most of the time should be c/r'ing that flop given the K and 2 heart flop. I don't think I'd donk here unless you have a dynamic with villain and you are doing it out of necessity for balance against your flushes.

Both hands are just spots that I made up on the fly that could be decent spots to lead. I think there are probably more clear spots to turn donk. Maybe like middle card pairing on the turn in a spot where I’m much more likely to have middle pair than my opponent. I agree in this example the IP and OOP have similar amounts of straights and flushes so hand 2 might not be the best spot to utilize this play.


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for hand 2 im having trouble coming up with hands here that i would call the flop with that do not have SD value on the turn, so theoretically then on this turn i would have zero bluffs?

No troll here, just pointing out that randomly donkbetting and hoping your opponent doesnt have it is not a winning strategy.

This is very similar to 'randomly cbetting and hoping they don't have it'. Is there a problem with that too?

A cbet and donkbet arent even remotely close to the same thing. You can only cbet if you were the initial raiser. You can only donkbet if you were the caller. Being the initial raiser suggests your range is strong. Being the caller suggest your range is weak. So if you're weak, why would you bet into someone who most likely has a strong hand? They're just going to call/raise you if they're strong. If they're weak they're going to fold/bluff. These are terrible results.

Perhaps your donkbet is actually very strong. Why would you use a strong hand to give your opponent the opportunity to fold by leading into him instead of letting him bluff/trap himself with a cbet?

Most people avoid incorporating donking in their strategy, because it's very very very very hard separating their range into 4 different baskets of value hands and bluffs that balance each other out. It's hard as it is to develop a relatively balanced range of bluff and value when you only have a checking range.

If you have already accomplished the latter feat, you are way ahead of 95% of regs. But if you haven't, why are you trying to complicate your strategy for what is probably minimal gain, that is if you manage to do it properly? In practice is far more likely that you will create some hole in your strategy that could be exploited by observant opponents.

If people cbet more than they should, you can start check raising them or probing them on the river when they check back turn.

You have to be not getting it on purpose. Yes, his range was stronger pre, but flop comes 457r and all of a sudden he's crushed. He has 77 and maybe 44 55, other than that pfr has zero hands that can stack off. BB likely has all sets, all suited 2p and straights. So there shouldn't be much cbetting going on because in position player wants to pot control even with overpairs. BB knows this and doesn't want him to check back and realize equity with his countless unpaired hands like QJ etc. so he donks. Still doesn't sound sensible?

The second paragraph is pure nonsense, you could use the same logic advocating for not cbetting TT on KT4, but you surely wouldn't do that.

So let me get this straight. BB flops the nuts and donks out so that QJ doesnt catch up? Or because AA always checks back because he's scared that BB just always has it?

No, BB likely has all random middle and bottom pairs, occasionally weak TP's and quite often complete air, because nobody ****ing leads into AK with a flopped straight so he doesnt realize equity lol.

You clearly dont understand anything about initiative or range balancing and seem to think all bets are equal under all conditions. You just want to make people fold pots because you dont know how to handle cbets. Your range in this spot is definitively *always weak* as indicated by your donkbet motivation. Villain will become aware of this and just float/raise you, at least if he has a clue. Heck in low stakes live games most fish will just call a donkbet precisely to try and hit top pair. Meanwhile you're just sitting there throwing chips into the ether because you literally have no idea what their hand is by that point. Did he float? Is he trapping? Pot controlling? lul i'unno, lets just bet again and see what happens!

I don't mind the insults much but you just lost me with the 2nd 'we don't know what villain has' argument. That's the point of the game and I'm supposed to not know anything about it.