Mastering the Donk Bet (3 Pro Tips for Max EV)
Let’s kick this off with an analogy…
If poker had a formal education system, donk betting would be the class with the fewest credits.
The expected value (EV) gained from donk betting is small (at least in theory). In other words, it’s not a critical strategy to add to your game, but there is value to be gained by donk betting.
A donk bet is when an out of position player bets into the aggressor in the previous street — the opposite of “checking to the raiser”.
In this article, I’ll explain:
- Why donk betting occasionally appears as optimal in simulations
- Why it contributes little EV in theory
- Why it can overperform in real games
- 3 tips to improve your donk betting strategy
Ready? Let’s dive in!
Note: This article is marked as advanced. If this isn’t your speed, check out our introductory and intermediate articles here.
Why Donk Betting Can Be Optimal in Some Simulations
When you input variables into a solver — ranges, bet sizes, etc — you’re never asked who was the aggressor on the previous street. Why?
Because it doesn’t matter.
When it comes to who should be the aggressor on the flop, what matters is:
- Who has the nut advantage (the primary factor)
- Who has the range advantage (overall equity edge)
Most of the time, the previous street’s aggressor retains his nut advantage and should continue betting.
However, certain flop, turn, or river cards will asymmetrically strengthen the defender, giving them a higher share of nutted hands.
Without diving too deep, here’s an example using Lucid Poker. Below is the big blind’s strategy after calling a preflop raise from the button on a two-tone 7c6d4c flop. You can follow the action by looking at the bottom left part of the image.
According to the solver, the big blind should donk 41% of the time using a 1.65bb size (33% of the pot).
In the upper right corner, you can see that the big blind’s range is comprised of 2.19% of straights (8x5x-suited and 6x3x-suited) and 2.14% of flopped sets (7x7x, 6x6x and 4x4x), for a total of 4.33% nutted hands.
Now, looking at the button’s range in the image below (upper right corner again), he has only 0.06% straights and 1.7% sets, for a total of 1.76% nutted hands:
The big blind holds more than a 2x nut advantage over the button — i.e. he has double the number of super strong hands.
As a result, despite being at a range and positional disadvantage, he can still build an extensive donking range. That’s the power of the nut advantage.
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Why Donk Betting Strategies Generate Little Expected Value
Donk betting generates little EV in theoretical models because you are playing out-of-position (OOP) with a high stack-to-pot ratio (SPR).
Why does that matter? Because when you’re OOP, you must balance multiple ranges: Donk, check-call, and check-raise. Your nutted hands must be distributed across all three ranges at various frequencies (otherwise you are exploitable).
Since the solver is omniscient, implementing a donking strategy will make it adjust by playing more aggressively against your checking range. Conversely, without a donking strategy, it will play more passively against the checking range.
Either way, because the solver knows your strategy perfectly, it will realize its equity optimally, maximizing EV whether it faces a donk bet or not.
Why Donk Betting Could Over-Perform in Real-Life Games
In real-life games, your opponents are not omniscient. Unless you’re playing against elite competition in a small player pool, your opponents won’t fully understand your donk-betting strategy. And if they don’t know, they won’t adjust properly.
Furthermore, since donk betting is an under-used strategy, most opponents won’t know how to counter it effectively.
Now, let’s examine how the button should respond to the 33% donk bet in the example below on that 7c6d4c board from our previous example:
The first thing I notice is that the solver slow-plays with overpairs, sets, and two-pairs — something many players won’t do. As a result, when your donk bet gets flatted on the flop, you can often continue aggressively on the turn, knowing you’re up against a capped range.
There are many other things that a real opponent might do differently than the solver. For example, he could play too aggressively or too passively with draws. These deviations from the optimal response create an incentive to donk bet more often than the solver suggests.
One last consideration when facing real-life opponents is understanding how aggressively they play versus a check compared to the solver.
If they are more aggressive than the solver, donk betting loses value. You’d be better off check-raising with your nutted hands and semi-bluffs in order to exploit their over-aggression in that part of the game tree.
Now, let’s move on to 3 key tips to help you implement and better understand the donk betting strategies.
Tip #1: Always consider who holds the nut advantage on the flop (and only donk if you have it)
To determine who has the nut advantage on a given flop, you must understand both your preflop ranges and your opponent’s.
A useful shortcut is to pay attention to low boards, which typically favor the defender more than the aggressor. Low boards favor the defender because, as the big blind, your range is more weighted towards lower card hands — these get a discount to call preflop. Additionally, your strongest hands are often missing since they would have 3-bet preflop.
Tip #2: Watch for turn and river cards that shift the nut advantage in your favor
These will, once again, typically be lower cards. Higher cards tend to give the in-position player an additional set without significantly helping your range. If that overcard completes a straight, it is more likely to benefit your opponent.
The most common spot where you should look to implement a donking strategy is when the board pairs the middle or bottom card when your opponent is unlikely to have it.
For example, let’s consider a scenario where we defended the big blind against the button, the flop came Tc7d4c (two-tone), and the turn pairs the 7h. Here’s how this spot looks in Lucid Poker:
The optimal strategy is to donk bet 60% of your range using a 25% pot-sized bet. This is driven by the big blind’s significant trips advantage — 12% of its range contains trips compared to just 4% of the button’s range.
If you want to learn more about this turn donking strategy, check out this article.
Tip #3: When you donk bet, opt for a small size
Despite having the nut advantage, which usually encourages larger bets, the optimal donk bet size is small. You should bet between 10% and 33% of the pot. The goal of the strategy is to maximize your overall equity realization while simultaneously minimizing your opponent’s.
Nutted hands don’t need to value bet to get the stack in — they can simply check-raise. This means the value of the donk bets comes from other parts of the range.
Leveraging the nut advantage, the solver bets with many good but vulnerable hands that benefit from equity denial and thin value extraction. These hand classes gain the most from the donk-betting strategy.
If you look at the image above (the T-7-4-7 board), you’ll see the solver betting with many top pairs, underpairs, trips, and third pairs. This works because when you have so many trips and boats, you’re protected by the nuts, and your opponent can’t apply much pressure since they’re simply outgunned.
The solver is looking to fold out the two-overcard hands like QxJx, Kx9x, and Kx8x, while extracting value from the stronger non-made hands such as AdXd, strong KdXd flush draws, and straight draws.
Final Thoughts
You are now armed with a wealth of knowledge about creating donk betting strategies. To deepen your understanding, work with a GTO trainer like Lucid Poker. This will provide precise answers and eliminate the guesswork when identifying the best boards and cards for donk betting.
That’s all for this article! I hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new. If you have any questions or feedback, drop them in the comment section below.
Until next time, good luck, grinders!
If you want to learn more about exploiting aggressive opponents, check out this article here.
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