uNL Cash Games Study Group, vol. 2

I wanted to post a general strat question that didn't actually require a new thread, and I couldn't find where. The chat thread is, well, for chat, and the old cash game thread is kinda dead now, so I decided to start a brand new and improved Cash Games Study Group, vol. 2.

We can discuss all kind of questions when you don't really want to start a new thread, post links to articles and vids (no, not music ones, fx) and so on.

I'll do my best to introduce new topics and not let it die like the other study group thread.

Now, onto the pokery stuff. I was thinking about donk bets recently, and how to combat them / implement them into our game. Now, combatting them has been somewhat discussed, but implementing them hasn't.

What are the benefits of donking as a bluff? Is it better than c/ring? What about when doing it for value?

Seems like a lot of people don't know how to play vs donk bets, so I think it's a good idea to research the subject more thoroughly.

EDIT: Here's a relevant thread I found over @ 2p2:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/micro-stakes-full-ring/cotw-donk-betting-970282/

Against a solid tag a small or even min donk bet usually works well when you flop massive ie a set or even a straight. A good TAG will re-raise big trying to show the aggression and reseize the initiative. You can then either flat call, (check on the turn and he'll bet 100% of the time) or raise again but this will probably fold out all but his best hands. If you can afford to give a free card I like calling then check/raising the turn as it eeeks out that little bit more value.
C/Ring with sets is really strong and they need a good hand to continue.

If you do a small or min donk bet and they fold, you can take note and start using it as a bluff when you miss.

^What exactly is a donk bet? > pot size?

Yeah, I've found out that most times people tend not to believe me when I donk bet and just spazz out with overcards or something. So, I guess it's better to be done for value vs the right player, that as a bluff, just because it looks so fishy and weak.

But I myself tend to fold a lot to decent sized donks from fish when I've whiffed completely. Idk why, I just think they have a hand and think they should bet it.

Its where someone bets into you after you've been the preflop raiser, so if you raise on the btn and someone calls in the bb and then bets out, they have donked.

^Ohh alright I see, thanks Acky.

If donk bet is about half pot of more it usually means they have top pair weak kicker.
If it's like min bet or double min they've probably just whiffed and you should raise big.

jbbb said:

If donk bet is about half pot of more it usually means they have top pair weak kicker.

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+1 @10nl this is more often than not the case.

jbbb said:

If donk bet is about half pot of more it usually means they have top pair weak kicker.
If it's like min bet or double min they've probably just whiffed and you should raise big.

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Even with air?

everyone does it for different reasons you need to remember how each hand was played, look over hands that go to showdown and analyse them so you can see your opponents thought process.

So yeah quite often a guy will donk half the pot on a flush draw or top pair with a bad kicker, and when you see stuff like this you note it down and then you can kind of understand how your opponent thinks, so many people at the micros play face up anyways, but some people are also stupid and will bet 30percent of the pot with their nut hands, just varies i suppose.

A good one to look out for is those who bet the same amount on two streets so like they bet like 30 into 60 on the flop and then 30 into 1.20 on the turn, this is just more often than not them with a draw/medium pair and sometimes like top pairs but shit kickers.

acky100 said:

A good one to look out for is those who bet the same amount on two streets so like they bet like 30 into 60 on the flop and then 30 into 1.20 on the turn, this is just more often than not them with a draw/medium pair and sometimes like top pairs but shit kickers.

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Yeah, I've seen that one quite a lot. It usually screams medium type hand/draw.

But what does the minbet flop / pot turn mean when a brick comes? No draw or anything. Quite often I think villain thinks we have a weak hand, because we would have otherwise raised. So he thinks we have a weak hand and is trying to take it away from us on the turn. First one is kinda like a tester bet, "to see where they're at", and then, when we show no resistance, they show aggression. Usually this line is taken by a maniacal fish, since only a fish can mindonk the flop, and only a maniac would try and be overly aggressive on the turn.

Yeah im not sure about that one, glad i dont face it a lot as it would probably get me to fold more often than not!

_dogmeat said:

Yeah, I've seen that one quite a lot. It usually screams medium type hand/draw.

But what does the minbet flop / pot turn mean when a brick comes? No draw or anything. Quite often I think villain thinks we have a weak hand, because we would have otherwise raised. So he thinks we have a weak hand and is trying to take it away from us on the turn. First one is kinda like a tester bet, "to see where they're at", and then, when we show no resistance, they show aggression. Usually this line is taken by a maniacal fish, since only a fish can mindonk the flop, and only a maniac would try and be overly aggressive on the turn.

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Depends whether you we raised the flop min-donk, and we should have. If he donk/calls the flop then pots the turn I probs shut down without a hand, we should pretty much always raise a min-donkbet on the flop, i'm at work, but a good way to see what a min-donk means would be to run a filter for facing donkbet on the flop AND raised flop or something, filter out all the big PP's and see how we're doing, I would say that if your raising donkbets a lot, with any of your opening range, then your in profit wether or not the flops hit us.

imo any line re: the micros that starts, "villain thinks......" is us levelling ourselves and over thinking something, i think 10nl and under you can confidently raise any min-donk with any cards and show a profit. Obv sometimes better players than myself would be able to pick better lines based on judgment of ranges/reads etc but fish's ranges are often a bitch to read and act on so i personally, for now, dont mind that i'll just raise any min-donk, same as i'd be raising from the BB vs any SB completing

acky100 said:

A good one to look out for is those who bet the same amount on two streets so like they bet like 30 into 60 on the flop and then 30 into 1.20 on the turn, this is just more often than not them with a draw/medium pair and sometimes like top pairs but shit kickers.

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Yes, that's something I've seen quite a bit of too.

_dogmeat said:

But what does the minbet flop / pot turn mean when a brick comes? No draw or anything. Quite often I think villain thinks we have a weak hand, because we would have otherwise raised. So he thinks we have a weak hand and is trying to take it away from us on the turn. First one is kinda like a tester bet, "to see where they're at", and then, when we show no resistance, they show aggression. Usually this line is taken by a maniacal fish, since only a fish can mindonk the flop, and only a maniac would try and be overly aggressive on the turn.

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Totally agree. I call the minbet when I have a good hand and wait for the pot or something to come on the turn, OR I raise it up when I've whiffed (easy game lol)

My understanding is that it's best used when villain has a low cbet. If he's going to be cbetting loads then there's tons of better ways to play with a check UNLESS he's aggro enough to re-raise our donk.

If we do donk bet we just go back to why we bet in the first place, then apply it to different scenarios and villains. I think it's best to come up with our own opinions by working through situations.

Just taking the standard that we called in the blinds against a button raise, we usually have one of 4 hands: marginal made hand, a strong hand, a decent draw or air. Against someone who doesn't cbet a lot we're not really going to be able to start ch/raising draws or air so we should be more tempted to donk bet with these. We also would prefer to see if he's foldy or likes to float too, so we can determine whether to double barrel or give up. If we have a strong made hand then I think we should donk too because if he's gonna check back a ton then we're missing value and giving free cards. I think with a marginal made hand we might be better checking unless he's horribly easy to exploit like floating 100% and folding most turns as we don't want to bloat the pot OOP with a marginal hand that we can get bluffs or value bets from on later streets.

Board texture is important too, if we flop a set on a wet board against some one he rarely cbets then checking is criminal.

Now going to read the thread.

When ever you're faced with a min donk bet please don't convince yourself that this fish (100% fish) is trying to level you or is thinking beyond I have this type of hand and I don't know how to play it. What each fish has maybe different but that's what reads are for. If you are ever min donk bet into I can give you one piece of advice which is as close to 100% as a statement about poker can be; act as if they had checked, play it exactly as you would do normally if they had checked.

LuckyChippy said:

When ever you're faced with a min donk bet please don't convince yourself that this fish (100% fish) is trying to level you or is thinking beyond I have this type of hand and I don't know how to play it. What each fish has maybe different but that's what reads are for. If you are ever min donk bet into I can give you one piece of advice which is as close to 100% as a statement about poker can be; act as if they had checked, play it exactly as you would do normally if they had checked.

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Yup, when they mindonk, sure. But when they donk a decent sized bet it's where I'm stuck at. I guess it's better than getting c/r but still

i highly recommend introducing donk betting into your play in multiway pots, e.g. UTG raises, BTN calls, you call in SB with 99, three to the flop, flop comes 964r, you can donk for 3/4 pot or 4/5 pot (or full pot even at stakes where it doesn't matter):


-it often gets checked through and you're not able to get as much money in the pot
-if UTG c-bets and BTN raises, your call/raise is going to look incredibly strong and you often will not get action
-UTG/BTN will look you up with a wider range because your bet seems FOS
-UTG/BTN will raise your bet with made hands, allowing you to 3b on the flop and essentially guarantee that you'll get stacks in (as oppose to you c/r'ing, which allows them to call flop and fold turn/river)
-you will be able to start balancing with draws/bluffs at stakes where balancing starts to matter (or at least somewhat matter, e.g. .5/1)



i will not comment on reacting to people's donk bets because that's generally dependent on stakes/table dynamics/player tendencies, which the player of those stakes/games is more likely to be better at analyzing

vanquish said:

i highly recommend introducing donk betting into your play in multiway pots

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Especially with a fish in the pot.

c9h13no3 said:

Especially with a fish in the pot.

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for sure, if there's a 70/0 or w/e, he's never gonna actually bet (i love that people exist that just never ever bet or raise under any circumstance), so it's up to you to get the money in

c9h13no3 said:

Especially with a fish in the pot.

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If it's 3 way pot, it depends on the position of the fish.

If it goes Us, Fish, Reg, then it's better to donk and trap the fish's money, since he'll call your donk and then the Reg will raise it up (considering he's the PFR), thus trapping the fish's money.

If it's Us, Reg, Fish, and you're confident the Reg will cbet most of the time, it's better to c/r, imo.

good thread. couldnt of thought of a better one myself

_dogmeat said:

If it's Us, Reg, Fish, and you're confident the Reg will cbet most of the time, it's better to c/r, imo.

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I still donk lead in those spots.

LuckyChippy said:

When ever you're faced with a min donk bet please don't convince yourself that this fish (100% fish) is trying to level you or is thinking beyond I have this type of hand and I don't know how to play it. What each fish has maybe different but that's what reads are for. If you are ever min donk bet into I can give you one piece of advice which is as close to 100% as a statement about poker can be; act as if they had checked, play it exactly as you would do normally if they had checked.

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Fair enough to a certain extent, but it's difficult to truly treat it as if they had checked. I think I know what you mean - if you would have normally bet then bet as if he did nothing. Fine, but apart from that, once he's donked into you, you can't actually check. You have to fold, call or raise. And that's the issue being discussed. Unless you are meaning to say that calling the mindonk is the same as checking? If so, then I'm not sure I agree for the reasons outlined above.

c9h13no3 said:

I still donk lead in those spots.

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Is this because you think the Reg won't cbet enough? Or because he won't raise when we do lead, hence the probability of getting the fish's money is bigger.

Now that I think about it, it's more probable he will not cbet with air in a MW pot, nor raise us with nothing, so it's better to just lead.