What are people donk betting the flop with?

[fundiver199]

Inspired by a recent discussion with kdmeteor I decided to take a more systematic look at, what people are actually donk betting the flop with in the games, I play. A donk bet is leading into the previous street aggressor so in this case calling preflop out of position and then betting the flop, before the preflop aggressor has had a chance to act. I wanted to do this by running filters in my PT4 database, but while I can apply the nessesary filters, I can not see the hands but only my chips won or lost, so this does not work.

So instead I am going to do this the slow way and after each session look at "View todays hands", sort them after preflop action, and when that was "raise" find those hands, where the flop action was "call", since that means, there was a donk bet. As the last condition the hand then also need to get to showdown, because otherwise there is no reveal.

I will also exclude hands, where the opponent was sitting on a very short stack and did a stop-and-go, which means donk-jamming the flop after calling preflop. I will add the hands to this threat, as I collect them, until I feel, we have reached a conclusion. In this mornings short section of 197 hands this hand happened:

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A small donk bet was a marginal top pair with a 12 out combodraw. Since the purpose of this threat is to investigate, what people are donk betting with on the flop, I will not dig deeper into the rest of the hand and analyse either the Villains or my own actions or dwell on the results.

 

[Poker_Mike]

Inspired by a recent discussion with kdmeteor I decided to take a more systematic look at, what people are actually donk betting the flop with in the games, I play. A donk bet is leading into the previous street aggressor so in this case calling preflop out of position and then betting the flop, before the preflop aggressor has had a chance to act. I wanted to do this by running filters in my PT4 database, but while I can apply the nessesary filters, I can not see the hands but only my chips won or lost, so this does not work.

So instead I am going to do this the slow way and after each session look at "View todays hands", sort them after preflop action, and when that was "raise" find those hands, where the flop action was "call", since that means, there was a donk bet. As the last condition the hand then also need to get to showdown, because otherwise there is no reveal.

I will also exclude hands, where the opponent was sitting on a very short stack and did a stop-and-go, which means donk-jamming the flop after calling preflop. I will add the hands to this threat, as I collect them, until I feel, we have reached a conclusion. In this mornings short section of 197 hands this hand happened:

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A small donk bet was a marginal top pair with a 12 out combodraw. Since the purpose of this threat is to investigate, what people are donk betting with on the flop, I will not dig deeper into the rest of the hand and analyse either the Villains or my own actions. But of course I lost this one.

I am going to guess that they have nothing.

They are just hoping that the original raiser has missed the flop and will fold.

And if the OR doesn't fold then there is always a chance that the donker will runner runner the nuts or at least the winning hand.

Good luck !

 

[JTifenbah]

I think "donking" aint that good of a strategy. I basicly almost never use it in my game. I prefer check raise as a strategy to a combo draw, or bottom pair with backdoor flush/straight draw. And in my experience that work prity good versus donking. Donking could be used maybe in the bb/button wars, to denie equity and block bet your stronger hands, like top pairs.

 

[puzzlefish]

Lately I have found two types of donk bets. The first is players who just want to confuse and slow down the aggressor and make them give away the weakness in their hand on the flop. If the aggressor just calls the donk bet, then the donk thinks that is weak and they can try to steal the pot on the turn and river. Naturally they might actually get a cheaper turn and river this way and bingo something.

The other is players who actually hit something like top pair and think they need to now bet for value and protect their hand despite not being the initial aggressor.

 

[Poker_Mike]

The other is players who actually hit something like top pair and think they need to now bet for value and protect their hand despite not being the initial aggressor.

I have seen the donker do this with a small pocket pair like 22 or 66. Again trying to turn their hand that may have been ahead preflop into a bluff on the flop.

 

[fundiver199]

Managed to collect two more donking hands, that went to showdown. To make it systematic I am going to classify the size of the donk bets as follow:

<40% small
40-60% medium
>60 large

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Medium sized donk bet was the nut flushdraw.

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Small donk bet was the nut nothing with a gutshot.

 

[fundiver199]

Decided to include flop jams AKA Stop n Go as a separate category, so now we have:

<40% small
40-60% medium
>60% large
All-in Stop n Go

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This Stop n Go was a gutshot with two overs. So far 4 out of 4 donk bets have been draws, one of them with top pair as well.

 

[fundiver199]

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Medium sized donk bet was second pair with a gutshot.

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Medium sized donk bet was the nuts - a flopped straight. So far 3 out of 6 donk bets were draws, 2 were pair + draw and 1 was the nuts.

 

[primrose]

I'm all for more data, but I didn't get why you can't do it with PT4

I wanted to do this by running filters in my PT4 database, but while I can apply the nessesary filters, I can not see the hands but only my chips won or lost, so this does not work.

Pretty sure you can filter for individual hands, I've done that a bunch when I used PT

 

[fundiver199]

I'm all for more data, but I didn't get why you can't do it with PT4. Pretty sure you can filter for individual hands, I've done that a bunch when I used PT

Its easy for cash game hands, but for tournaments hands I can only get my total chips won or lost displayed not the individual hands. Like it will say "there was 174 hands fitting the criteria in these 58 tournaments, and you won/lost XXX chips". When I then select one of the tournaments and try to display the hands with filters on, no hands are displayed. The difference is, that with tournaments the "View Stats" display entire tournaments and the result of these rather than individual hands. Maybe I am just missing something.

 

[primrose]

Hmm, well you're right about this being a difference, and I only used it for Cash hands. (Well, I have used PT4 for tournaments in the past, but that's many years ago when I wasn't very good at the game and I don't remember much about it.) So I don't know from experience, but, from a design perspective, there's almost no way that this isn't possible. Like it's such a basic feature, it must work somehow. And poker tracker is not straight-forward to use, so it could just be confusing how you have to do it.

Unrelated, I had another tournament yesterday where someone donked over pot, the other guy all-ined (with two pair, top&bottom), and the first guy snap-called; first guy flopped the straight. Not a contradiction to any of your data points since it's live, but just, man is this a good tell in weak live poker. I wonder if I could have folded two pair in that spot.

 

[fundiver199]

And poker tracker is not straight-forward to use, so it could just be confusing how you have to do it.

That might well be. Anyways I am also mostly doing this for fun, so I dont need to plow through 1.000´s of hands to make it super scientific. I will just continue to collect the hands, as I play, until the sample is at least a bit larger and then see, if I can come up with some conclusions.

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In this one a medium sized donk bet was a weak made hand with no draw, so now we can add that to our list.

 

[fundiver199]

Small donk bet was trips with good kicker.

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[Kerasuss28]

Inspired by a recent discussion with kdmeteor I decided to take a more systematic look at, what people are actually donk betting the flop with in the games, I play. A donk bet is leading into the previous street aggressor so in this case calling preflop out of position and then betting the flop, before the preflop aggressor has had a chance to act. I wanted to do this by running filters in my PT4 database, but while I can apply the nessesary filters, I can not see the hands but only my chips won or lost, so this does not work.

So instead I am going to do this the slow way and after each session look at "View todays hands", sort them after preflop action, and when that was "raise" find those hands, where the flop action was "call", since that means, there was a donk bet. As the last condition the hand then also need to get to showdown, because otherwise there is no reveal.

I will also exclude hands, where the opponent was sitting on a very short stack and did a stop-and-go, which means donk-jamming the flop after calling preflop. I will add the hands to this threat, as I collect them, until I feel, we have reached a conclusion. In this mornings short section of 197 hands this hand happened:

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A small donk bet was a marginal top pair with a 12 out combodraw. Since the purpose of this threat is to investigate, what people are donk betting with on the flop, I will not dig deeper into the rest of the hand and analyse either the Villains or my own actions or dwell on the results.

Donk bet is 90% the nuts , i fold always against donks

 

[JTifenbah]

I have seen the donker do this with a small pocket pair like 22 or 66. Again trying to turn their hand that may have been ahead preflop into a bluff on the flop.

It can be variety of plays, you never know for sure what your opponent got. It depends from player to player. In my experience small 'donk' lead could be sign of strong hand aswell. The point of that play is to induce raise and build pot. But still, it depends from player to player. I never use "donking", only maybe on river when the board is favourite to my range.

 

[fundiver199]

Only two hands fitting the criteria out of 1.500 played this morning.

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Large donk bet was top two pair on a very connected board.

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Small donk bet was top pair no kicker.

Summary so far: 3 strong made hands, 2 weak made hands, 3 draws, 2 pair+draw. In each of the 10 hands the donk better connected with the board in at least some way. None so far were pure bluffs.

 

[fundiver199]

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Medium sized donk bet was top pair no kicker.

 

[primrose]

Only two hands fitting the criteria out of 1.500 played this morning.

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Large donk bet was top two pair on a very connected board.

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Small donk bet was top pair no kicker.

Summary so far: 3 strong made hands, 2 weak made hands, 3 draws, 2 pair+draw. In each of the 10 hands the donk better connected with the board in at least some way. None so far were pure bluffs.

I think people are generally totally willing to check-fold if they have whiffed completely. I'd never expect a donk bet to be a complete bluff. I do it as a complete bluff sometimes, mostly when I defend the BB with something like QT and then get a very BB range that I've completely missed, like 356s. But I don't think it's a thing most people do.

Although it doesn't seem like the pattern I suggested holds up super well so far in your hands, either. These two examples are exactly what I'd expect, more of those please!

 

[fundiver199]

I think people are generally totally willing to check-fold if they have whiffed completely. I'd never expect a donk bet to be a complete bluff.

Yeah it makes sense. In many of the hands there seem to be a protection element to the donk bet though rather than it being strictly for value. Like T9 on T98 or K2 on KXX monotone. Its like, they are saying "hey I think, I probably have the best hand here, but the board is very dangerous, and I am out of position, so I just want you to go away".

 

[primrose]

Yes, as a matter of psychology, I would agree that fear probably is closer to the real explanation than a dispassionate value calculation.

 

[fundiver199]

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Small donk bet was bottom pair. Summary so far: 3 strong made hands, 4 weak made hands, 3 draws, 2 pair+draw. In each of the 12 hands the donk better connected with the board in at least some way. None so far were pure bluffs. On the other side only 4 hands were strong including one hand, that was top pair + draw and had a lot of equity. Everything else was a draw or some sort of mediocre made hand from top pair no kicker down to bottom pair.

 

[fundiver199]

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Stop n Go was bottom pair with a draw.

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Medium sized donk bet was a pure bluff.

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Small donk bet was a pure bluff. The opponent folded but showed ATo.

 

[fundiver199]

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Small donk bet was top pair weak kicker.

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Medium sized donk bet was top pair decent kicker - I will let it pass for a strong made hand.

Summary so far: 4 strong made hands, 5 weak made hands, 3 draws, 3 pair+draw, 2 pure bluffs.

I think, I will end the thread here. Even though 17 hands is not a massive sample, I think, its fair to say, that people are donk betting the flop with a pretty wide variety of hands. Its not super strong but not super weak either, so we basically have to approach donk bets in a way, thats not much different from other bets. We cant always fold anything but the nuts, but we also cant go crazy and always raise or them them, as to be honest I did in a few of these hands.

 

[SpanRmonka]

The donk bet is no longer the absolute weak holding it used to be. I got caught live,recently when a guy donked having his his set!! Luckily for him, not for me, I had also hit my A for top pair decent kicker so he got paid the max.

I would say from anecdotal experience the donk bet is pretty varied, but is def often with a decent hand but not, as you mentioned in a previous post, pure value. I'm pretty wary these days and feel like I need a draw or decent hand myself to continue against them, size depecndent of course!!

 

[monkeytilter]

One example of a donk bet..
I think villain was "afraid " of draws, had top pair and didn't give much thought to what he was getting called by, that's if any thinking was involved at all.

This is 25c Spin on Stars, early in the game so it's 3 hand with pretty much full stacks.
I open 2x on the button, slightly on the looser side but still a majority play.
Villain donks it all in on the flop. GG