Heads-Up: The Flop Donk Bet

Introduction

In this article

• Reasons and situations for a flop donk bet

• How do we continue playing on the turn

What is a donk bet

• A flop donk bet is the name for a bet on the flop, even though the opponent took the initiative pre-flop.

Fixed Betting Sequence:

Let's imagine a standard scenario:

Button raises, BB calls and the board is K 7 2
Button bets, BB folds.
Button represented a strong hand with his raise pre-flop. He plays his hand identically with a high pocket pair like AA. But he could just as well have J T and immediately fold after a raise from the BB.
The inner logic of his continuation bet is that the weak hands of his wide range (let's say the best 38%) profit, as the opponent always has to assume that the button has AA/KK or another strong hand. The consequence is that the BB will usually fold with a hand like A 3, even though he's often ahead.
At the same time his very strong hands profit from his wide range. Let's assume that BB has a hand like A 7, so the button will reap the rewards of further bets with little risk, with a hand like KK. We see that the button can again capitalise on his wide range. Although it's a generalisation, you could even set up a rule that the button wins the pot if he has a made hand on the flop and the BB doesn't.
If we knew that BU only raises AA, we could call with 72o and only play when we beat AA. We win a very big pot (18-20 SB post-flop on average) when we are ahead, but only lose a single SB if we are behind. Thus the button cannot capitalise on his range or his initiative.
As we don't have this information advantage, we need a lot more than 22% equity (we receive 3,5:1 on our call) to defend in the BB. Only this way can we compensate for the disadvantages of not having the initiative, the lack of information and other factors like reverse implied odds.

If you now argue that our range is in reality much bigger than our opponent's, simply compare the hands which are in your range and those in the opponent's. The mere number of possible hands might be higher in the range from the BB, but they only include hands which Doyle Brunson designates as “trash hands” in Super System 2. On the other hand, the BU's range includes the high pockets as well as AK. This makes a tremendous difference so that the BB does never know for sure where he stands. Following this is that he will fold the best hand with A3o, as in the previous example.
The button uses this information advantage and his initiative, by making a continuation bet on the flop. If the button has several opponents, his information advantage shrinks and his initiative isn't worth much either anymore, as one of his opponents often brings a strong hand to the showdown and thus only the strengths of the hands count. As a small countermeasure, the BB has the opportunity to check/raise with strong hands and thus grab at least one SB from the BU.

Heads-up we can assume that the button always makes a continuation bet. The BB has to now come to a decision and can either fold, call or raise. After the button's continuation bet, a “fixed betting sequence” (FBS) ends.

But what does all of this have to do now with donk bets?

Donk bets are a violation of the FBS.

At first, a flop donk bet appears to be illogical: Why should you donk with a strong hand when you could at the same time abuse the opponent's FBS and check/raise?

Reasons for a flop donk bet

If we really only donked with strong hands, we'd get no advantage from this strategy as it would make more sense to abuse the FBS and check/raise, or define the situation as way ahead / way behind.

The show-stopper however is that we mix donk bets of strong hands with donk bets of weak hands, and thus create a balance which our opponent cannot abuse. It is of course important to notice if our opponent always raises donk bets. If this is the case, we can play our made hands even more profitably than usual.
If we have a non-paired trash hand on an A72 rainbow board, we can suddenly play this hand +EV (usually we'd have to fold it, which would imply an EV of 0 at the flop). As we mostly have trash hands on such boards, it quickly becomes apparent that there is quite some value to get. The opponent is facing a difficult situation: We give him the option to make mistakes.
As we only invest one SB into our bluff, it's not possible that the opponent always folds unpaired cards (as the donk bet would thus be too clearly +EV).
It's enough if the opponent folds in 18.2% of the cases to make our bluff profitable.
Thus he is forced to also at least call once with unpaired cards like KQ. Everybody knows how irksome it is to call with cards which could already be drawing dead.

If we now check on the turn with the intention of folding after a bet, the opponent has to “bluff back” or grant us another free card (so mostly 6 full outs). Again, our opponent has to make a difficult decision.
With a strong hand like A3o we could now either check/raise or receive a crying call on the river. Ideally, we win against an opponent's trash hand like KQo and have 2 SB more than usual (our opponent mostly folds after our check/raise on the flop). If on the other hand we completely abandon the flop donk bets, we rather give the opponent the opportunity to play his hand perfectly. If he has a trash hand, he can take a free card on the turn and fold on an unimproved river. If he has a strong hand, he only has to bet through. If he has a marginal made hand in a what we consider way ahead / way behind situation, he only has to ponder about another value bet on the river.
Let's imagine we have A3o on a A72 rainbow board and we check/raise after we defended our big blind. The opponent calls and raises us on the turn.
Now we are facing a difficult decision and our call down will only slightly be +EV, if at all. To avoid this possibility (the opponent receives a lot of value for his strong hands), we rather donk.
If on the other hand we play the same hand in call down mode, it will hardly be possible to extract more than 3 SB post-flop from marginally weaker hands, as our opponent takes a free showdown or we are enticed to make a dangerous river donk bet. Again, the donk bet shows its advantages.

What if the opponent plays perfectly?

Assuming that our opponent exploits the information offered perfectly, knows exactly the percentage ratio between bluffs and “value donk bets”, and furthermore makes in 100% of the cases a continuation bet, a flop donk bet is refutable from a theoretical point of view.
In practice, this is very hard if not impossible to implement, as a calculation is much too complex to solve within the 20 second respite. Furthermore, it is very difficult for our opponent to guess our ratio between bluffs and “value donk bets” (so donk bets with made hands).

Thus this strategy is even applicable on the highest limits and is unlikely to be negated in practice.

When do we use the flop donk bet?

The board has to meet the following characteristics:

1. Draw-less

2. The opponent should have rarely hit something

3. We should have the opportunity to make Ace high fold

4. The board should still be scary enough, so that our bluff donk bets get our opponent to fold as often as possible

When these 4 conditions have been fulfilled, we can think about a flop donk bet. With this board structure our opponent usually has either a very strong hand or a very weak hand (which barely has outs).

Our hand has to meet the following characteristics:

1. It must not be strong enough for a flop 3-bet. In this case we preferably check/raise, as we will get more value with this line

2. It must be weak enough to fold it after a 3-bet on the turn

3. Free cards should not bother our hand, as we want to check/raise the turn and our opponent often takes the free card

To donk on very scary boards like 7 8 9 is advisable against certain opponents, but we cannot balance this line with made hands. On lower limits, our donk bet usually ends in a call down from Ace high. Thus caution is advised and the donk bet is not recommended as a rule. Instead, we should rather abuse the opponent's Fixed Betting Sequence via a check/raise on the flop here.

The opponent raised the flop, our flop play?

We fold trash hands with insufficient outs immediately.

Our made hands are not strong enough for a 3-bet, as we only donk with made hands which are either barely playable as C/C flop, C/C turn or only just as C/R flop, bet turn.

So our preferable line is somewhere in between. If the opponent now raises the flop, it tips the balance towards choosing the passive line – we call the raise.

After a 3-bet, our opponent is easily able to lay down his weak hands or raise his strong ones for value on the turn. Thus we have a way ahead / way behind situation.

• We play bet/call flop.

Often our opponent will raise the flop and take a free card on the turn.

This isn't that bad though, as he rarely has outs when he's behind, and we often receive another big bet on the river from a bad made hand.

The Turn Play

On the turn we say goodbye to our trash hands in almost every case and play check/fold. A further bet (usually we get ~3:1) doesn't usually offer enough fold equity.

We check/raise our good hands, as Villain often bets with trash hands (after a “bluff call”) and senses weakness. Thus we can ideally balance our frequent check/fold and often receive a free card with our trash hands.
If the opponent makes a 3-bet, it often indicates a very strong hand. Our check/raise on the turn out of position is also considered an “action killer”. Thus our hands should not be too strong.

So we select precisely those hands which we can easily fold after a turn 3-bet, but with which we don't want more action either at the same time.

A set here would be a counter-example as we would want to get 6 or even 8 bets on the turn into the pot, and the check/raise would show so much strength that this is mostly averted.

At the same time we should be able to value bet the river and not have to play check/fold. A check/fold is not taken into consideration on the river as we often get very loose call downs, as our opponents often attribute the flop donk bet to little strength.

Our middle pairs with middle kickers are rather susceptible for free cards, and generally we want to get our opponent to fold on the flop immediately.

So the only remaining hand groups are middle pairs with ace kicker (with which we often dominate the opponent) to top pair with weak kicker.
Sometimes our hand is not strong enough to bet for value on the river, or earn more money if we induce bluffs, respectively.

For example the ace could join a K72r board on the turn.

Now our hand is no longer strong enough to check/raise and value bet the river.

The consequence is that we regard this situation as a way ahead / way behind situation and play check/call turn.
But even if the board remains the same, we often face the same decision with middle pairs: The board is K722r and we have A7o.

With a check/raise we now can get worse hands to fold. Often we have to play the river check/fold. Thus it makes more sense to play C/C turn and induce a further bluff on the river.

On our example board K722r we give the opponent 6 full outs with a hand like QJ, and at least 3 outs with a hand like A3. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable as we cannot count on really holding the worse hand after a called check/raise on the turn. In this example we either want to a) see the showdown and not have to play check/fold on the river and b) induce bluffs. For this, C/C turn is the most favourable variant.

Adapting to our opponents

With this strategy, we differentiate our opponents into two groups:

1. Opponents who give our flop donk bet too little credit and see it as weakness.

2. Opponents who give our flop donk bet too much credit and thus fold too often.

Depending on which group our opponents belong to, we have to shift the ratio between pure bluffs and “value donk bets”.

If our opponent always calls, we never bluff. If our opponent always folds, we always bluff.

In an extreme case we should even completely forget bluffs.

Opponents from group 1) appear more often on the midstakes. We exploit them by winning more with our strong hands than usual.

Generally, it is an advantage if the opponent plays tighter, as our bluffs (which will happen more often than our made hands) have better prospects of success. The best is when our opponent either always folds after our flop donk bet or never. Here we can very easily exploit his strategy. The most difficult opponent is the one who raises our flop donk bet with strong hands as well as some trash hands, calls with marginal (but still better hands), immediately folds with some of his trash hands and all of this in the correct ratio.

If the opponent's pre-flop raising range is tighter, it's more probable that he hit the board. Thus we should bluff with fewer trash hands than if his range was looser.

Note: If we very rarely donk, we don't have to “balance” our line

In such a case we have to decide to use the flop donk bet against opponent XY only as a pure bluff, or as a “value donk bet”. We can switch this at will between opponents.. After a successful bluff we should maybe switch again as our opponent mostly won't let it pass a second time.

After showing a strong hand though, we have optimal fold equity and should use a bluff again as soon as possible.

Flop donk bets from a psychological point of view

As already mentioned, we induce our opponent to make mistakes, as we simply give him the option to do so.

Let's imagine we have A3o on a K72r board.

Often our opponent will call our flop donk bet with QJo, but won't bet neither turn nor river if he remains unimproved. We win the pot with Ace high. So our opponent is forced to bet with a hand like QJo and bluffing is not everyone's cup of tea. A calling station will often give us free cards or even free showdowns, while a LAG wants to bet every trash hand and bring them to the showdown as he suspects a bluff behind our “illogical” and “mysterious” line. Or he wakes up after our check/raise and notices that he had a completely wrong read on us. This does not only create frustration, which often results in weak call downs, but also tilt.

Another aspect is that the opponents often compulsively try to adapt.

The first time, Villain will fold after our flop donk bet without objection; but the second time, he will raise us in cold blood, with a hand or without. Thus we have to reappoint our ratio between bluff and “value donk bet” to always remain one step ahead of the opponent.

Examples

Cutoff raises, we call in the BB:

a) Board: A 7 3

A prime example for our flop donk bet. The opponent is a TAG with 30/20/2,2/35 stats who doesn't have any reads except our stats.

We donk here with an ace with bad kicker (A 5) and also include some trash hands. It's of course sensible if we have further outs in case we get called. Thus a hand like 56/45 is ideal for it. Furthermore, you have to take into account that e.g. a king among our hole cards would have to be discounted because of domination. The consequence is that a hand like 89 is rather suited for a donk bet than K9. One possibility would be to donk the best 30% of our trash hands. Another possibility is to donk with every trash hand and speculate that our opponent wrongly rates the ratio between bluffs and “value donk bets”.

In our example we bet with A 5, the opponent calls and the turn card is a queen of .

We try to check/raise as planned, but this time our opponent 3-bets.

If we now sift through his range we will notice that there is no hand we can beat, which our opponent would play straightforward – thus we fold.

With this (easy) fold we have to struggle with a problem:

There are no hands with which we donk on the flop and pay out a turn 3-bet, unless we improve. Thus we consequently trust that our opponent doesn't know our line and plays straightforward enough. A maniac would not be a good prey for our donk bet strategy.

Flop changes

A 7 2 - a two flush board

Here we can donk with some reservations, but we should bluff less often as it has fewer chances for success.

J 7 3

On this board we want to prevent free cards with top pair and are thus forced to not check on the turn. Furthermore, our equity increases with top pair as our opponent rarely has a top pair with better kicker than on a A73 board. Thus this board is not suitable and we should instead check/raise with top pair.

If there's a queen instead of the jack, we're in a borderline situation and are able to decide in favour of or (in general) against a donk bet depending on the opponent.

b) K 7 2 board:

The opponent is a LAG with 40/25/2,2/37 stats.

With this opponent we have to reckon that he could raise us with any two cards, thus we should rarely bluff.

We bet K6s, Villain calls and we're at the turn.

If the turn card is an ace, we switch to C/C, as we're in a way ahead / way behind situation.

If the turn card is a blank, we can check/raise.

If the turn card is a king or a six, we stick with our C/R line nonetheless.

We can of course try bet/3-bet, but our 3-bet shows a lot of strength and our opponent will be able to easily part with many weaker hands. Furthermore, it rarely happens that our opponent raises us. He will rather try to induce further bluffs from us with medium strength hands with which he is “showdown committed”. Thus the check/raise fares slightly better.

In our example, the turn card was another two and our opponent takes a free card. The river card is an ace, but nonetheless we have to play bet/fold as the opponent usually does not bet worse made hands (not least due to the confusion a donk bet creates). At the same time our opponent will often call any pair, as he estimates the chances of a pure bluff to be very high.