When to Lead into the Preflop Aggressor*
“Donk betting” on the flop, or leading into the preflop aggressor, is a powerful play that many players aren’t using often enough. It is a useful alternative to only check/calling or check/raising the preflop aggressor. Particularly at lower limits, where 99% of your opponents are weak/average hold’em players, this play will earn you extra bets with your monster and marginal hands.
If you lead into the preflop aggressor, one of three things will happen.
1). He will fold, and you will win the pot on the flop uncontested. A fine result; the small pots add up!
2). He will call. This almost always means that your opponent doesn’t have a very strong hand; he is often drawing or holding a weak hand that can’t stand the pressure of another bet. This is a great time to fire a second bet on a blank/scary turn with a marginal hand like middle pair or a gutshot.
3). He will raise. This is a good result if you have a nice draw or a very strong hand, like a set. You can make a large 3bet and get most of your money in on the flop you’re your 3bet range (strong hands/good draws)has the most equity.
Donk betting with marginal hands works best when the action is heads up, since you are trying to win the pot as soon as possible and playing against multiple hands makes it less likely you will win the pot on the flop.
It also works well in 3 way limped pots when you are in the blinds (particularly the big blind, as you get to see what the small blind thinks about the flop).
Unless your opponent is a total nit, don’t donk bet with air. If you are called, you don’t have less outs to improve to an often deceptive strong hand like a gutshot or middle pair. More importantly, if you are often donk betting with air you will end up donk betting a lot. Even the crappy regulars will realize this, and will raise your donk bets lightly. And once that happens, all that your donk bets are accomplishing is making that pot your opponent takes away from you a little larger.
There are a few conditions under which donk betting is sometimes not the most profitable play:
1). When you are holding a hand like TPGK or an 8-9 out draw. Without a specific note/read, these hands are better off check/calling the flop and making a decision on the turn. If you know your opponent is very loose and aggressive with flop raises (or when he begins to adjust to your flop donk betting by raising a wider range), then these hands become as good as sets/better draws to 3bet with.
2). When your opponent c-bets a lot. For those who use the HUD stats, I would guess a c-bet percentage over 80% is more profitable to exploit by floating/check raising than donk betting is.
(Title edited per bigpsenda's advice. See below for explanation)
