Donk Bet
Is a donk bet a bad bet and what uses does it have?
What is a donk bet?
A Donk bet is a bet that is made post flop by a player that does not have the lead in the hand.
Some newer players confuse donk bets and the
continuation bet but there is a big difference.
Is a donk bet only made by a bad player?
Not always no. Donk betting against the right kind of opponent can actually be a very useful tool when thought about correctly and I'll go over some examples in just a second.
The reason that many people do consider a donk bet as bad or weak play is because it is frequently used by fishy players that just don't know what else to do.
Let's imagine that you are in a 6 max game and you have a hand like
Ace King. You decide to raise pre flop and you get called by what you consider a weak player.
Let's just say that we know the opponent has a pair of sevens (for the sake of making a point).
Now let's imagine that the flop comes down and you've missed but your fishy opponents
pairs of sevens don't look too great either.
Now one of the fishy thought processes in this kind of spot from the player that called with 77 may be the fact that he's not sure if his hand is good or not so wants to 'test the water' by making a bet (this would be a donk bet as you were the pre flop raiser).
In this situation you need to think about how strong he is? Surely if your opponent had a great hand he'd check to you with a view to either check raise or slow play (depending on how aggressive you've been perhaps).
So now we've thought about it and eliminated strong hands all that remains are his bluffs and weak hands trying to 'figure out if they are good'. All of these hands can not really stand the heat of a raise. So you raise and he folds. Even if he does make a crying call on the flop, he will be hard pushed to call a turn and river bet, especially if more over cards to the board roll off.
Now you see the problem with the logic of a 'fishy donk bet' is the fact that yes, the guy did in fact have the best hand but due to his play on the flop he has no way of knowing that he did and next to no chance to show the hand down against a good aggressive opponent.
Can a donk bet be a good play?
Yes!
Most plays in poker that are bad in one situation can actually be very good in another. This is mainly because we need to adjust to our opponents style of play.
Here are a couple of quick examples where a donk bet could be useful.
against a very aggressive opponent
Some players are so aggressive that they take any sign of 'fishy play' as a green flag to start going crazy in an attempt to get you to fold.
Sometimes against aggressive players that think donk bets are weak, you can actually donk bet your monster hands in an attempt to induce them to go bluff crazy in a spot where the standard check raise may get them to fold.
Against a thoughtful hand reader that checks back flops
This next situation may be against a player in a heads up match that you have noticed likes to take pot control lines with his medium strength, show down hands especially on flops that hit your range (maybe the middling connected flops). So when you hit on one of those connected flops you may decide to just donk bet into him to stop him from checking back and picking up additional outs (equity) for free.
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