Select Page
Poker Forum
Over 1,291,000 Posts!
Poker ForumSmall Stakes NL Hold'em

Donk betting the turn

Results 1 to 11 of 11

Threaded View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1

    Default Donk betting the turn

    I've been making use of this play a lot, when I feel I'm in a situation that donk betting is superior to check/calling and check/raising, and check folding.

    Here's the issue I run into. Somewhere in here I'm going to have my poker "friend" watch me play because I've been struggling hard with 50nl, and he hates donk bets with an unhealthy passion. Like literally, the donk bet is virtually never excusable same thing with check raises with nutted hands on flop/turn. I've been making use of it a lot lately because when he's not watching over me at the tables I feel like I'm afforded some level of freedom to play how I want to at the tables, and while I haven't been tracking my results in zone, I am on a ridiculous 20 buy in upswing in just under a week.

    And my last down session, I was taking shots at 50nl, and I got scared of the money and played horribly, which is why I lost so much, minus one cooler (All in PF KK vs AA which put me on tilt for the rest of the session and lost another 4 buy ins after I lost that initial buy in).

    Ok, so I'm going to do a hypothetical hand in zone, no reads on my opponents specifically just population reads for 25nl zone.

    I'm dealt 99 in the BB, 100bb stacks each to make things simple. BTN raises 3bb, SB folds, I call the additional 2bb (I've been 3betting a lot less with pocket pairs in the blinds and oop as I find people don't fold to cbets often enough to make them profitable to play oop IMO). Pot will be 6.5bb on flop

    So a generic flop of A82 raindbow hits. I check, BTN bets 4bb into a 6.5bb pot. This is a very standard play. I expect BTN to cbet the flop 90% of the time, regardless if he has the A or not, my hand has showdown value, I think check-raising might look weird here because there's not much I can really represent past some kind of rare nutted A (A8 or A2) or a rare set or something, 88, 22, basically they're going to call a check raise that doesn't make sense a lot of the time because I'm bluffing a lot of the time, and with 99 it would assuredly be closer to a bluff/semi-bluff than a check-raise for value since I stand very little chance to improve on turn/river, and if I check raise I'll unfortunately have to continue bluffing and invest more money in the pot to take it without going to showdown.

    On the turn comes a random 3

    The 3 only completes an obscure straight. This is one where I feel if I check, and he bets and I call, I'm still lost on where I stand in the hand on river. I don't know if he has the A, or an 8. But when I bet, this shows I'm willing to fight for the pot, I take the lead, and I sort of force him to have some kind of hand because the pool of players I'm against rarely bluff-raise turn, and some of the times he's calling with the A and sometimes the 8, or perhaps a higher middling pair than me. Sometimes he's folding those higher 2nd pairs because now he'll think I have the A since I check-called flop and gave him more action on turn.

    It gives me quite a bit more information where I stand in the hand when I donk-bet here, than if I check-called, and check-folding if he one of the scarce 8's in his range, he's folding me out when I have the better hand. If I donk-bet here, I'm folding out his equity share in the pot when he has say 2 overs like JQ, KQ, KJ etc.

    If he raises my bet, I know I'm most likely beat and he always has at least the A. If he calls, I'm putting him on a hand that beats my measly pair of 9's even if it's not the A, and I'm shutting down on river. The 8 might still call a 2nd barrel here some of the time, but probably won't bet the river, because he's not really getting value out of anything worse.

    If he gives me more action on river, again I know I'm beat at this point, but if his hand was marginal he would probably check river and not fire another bet on a 3rd street, in which case my showdown value will win some of the time.

    So my friend has this unhealthy hatred for donk-bets but I feel like I'm getting a lot of use out of this manuever, in part because I think if I'm determined to see a turn/river, why not take the lead and bet, offering them an opportunity to fold, rather than check-calling where my only hope to win the hand is to make the best hand at that point (I'm not very adept at doing crazy river bluffs btw, I play the river pretty straightforward overall which is probably a huge leak in my game).

    Anyways it would be nice to get an opinion here, I can not discuss this topic with my friend or anyone in his poker group, without being derided for "still thinking like a fish after 4 1/2 years of Online Poker".
    Last edited by JimmyS1985; 11-06-2016 at 04:03 AM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •