How to play against passive donks

Play against passive and aggressive donks abounds in surprises which are often very unpleasant for good players, who use their intellect and skills in play. Unfortunately, skills and experience frequently prove useless in the confrontation with certain players who are generally called ‘donks’. Of course, in the long run, your abilities will always have the advantage and donks are the most ‘generous’ donors. However, in the short run, play against such opponents can be extremely frustrating and drive mad even the most composed players who have seen and experienced a lot in their poker careers.

Donks and unpleasant surprises

Donk is an offensive term used in the poker jargon to describe weak players who commit numerous mistakes and despite of this can sometimes beat better players. One time incredible luck smiles on them, some other time they win because they are so unpredictable in their actions that they will beat us in the most unexpected moment.

Although generally they are the biggest donors, many of the ‘standard’ strategies do not work with them. It is difficult to assess the range and strength of their hands. Usually players do not like to play against donks because such play is very variable, can be frustrating, can put them off their stride and the technique of play adopted against mediocre opponents.

A few tips about how to beat a donk

The following tips come from a player who has developed a method of dealing with passive donks, that is those who like to call frequently, but they themselves bet rarely (calling stations). The rules are very simple:

• 1. Valuebet. If you know a donk well and take different precautions you can raise even the medium hands, like e.g. a second pair, on three streets – only if you still see many possible weaker hands that can turn out profitable for you.
• 2. Try to do all you can to isolate a weak player. A third non-donk player in the pot poses a serious threat and you should play very carefully.
• 3. Get to know a donk. Pay attention to the reads based on his manner of play (e.g. hesitation). Such donks usually play at one table and do not pretend. The general rule is that if they hesitate it means that they have something (a second pair, TPNK and so on). If they do not, they check without hesitation, although it does not apply to all situations.
• 4. React instantly to any expressions of aggression, unless they start to recur. This is probably the most difficult in the confrontation with donks. First to bet… with the top pair and fold a really strong hand in the next hand, because we try to instinctively follow a pattern and as a result of such total occupation with fleecing a donk of his money, regulars give away their chips.
• 5. You must forget about playing the majority of draws aggressively. We do not have fold equity. It is another mistake made by regs playing with donks. You cannot think in a street-after-street pattern playing draws with such donks. Landing yourself in aggressively played draw equals calling with this draw all-in on the flop, because we have to assume that most probably we will get to the river and then what? Let say that on the flop we had 36% chance to complete to the river, then on the river two out of three times we will give money away. That is all.
• 6. Usually such a passive donk with a full stack (unless he is a short stack) can be kicked out of the pot by, for example, a shove on the flop, maybe on the turn. However, it should be avoided because it is counterproductive. It is even not about the fact that we will usually give away our chips only for some second pair or some knockout possibly caught by our opponent before the showdown. We simply frighten him and discourage from playing with us. He will be folding our betting, because he plays for pleasure. He likes to build hands, he enjoys being in a play, so our all-ins made right away are not quite to his liking. So he will have VP$IP 80, but when we enter the pot he will fold.
• 7. Donk for whom we do not have position is only a fading shadow of a donk.
• 8. Notes about donks are more important than those about regs. We can distinguish different types of donks, for example those who call everything and fold almost everything on the river. Or those who check everything and fold almost everything untill a particular overbet.
• 9. With more timid donks who sometimes fold, it is worth using something that can be called ‘tesco-bet’ (after the way prices are determined in tesco: 99.99), that is betting 2 instead of 1.9 or 1.9 instead of 2 depending on our intentions.
• 10. We should limit 3bet unless it is necessary for isolating. It simply does not have sense. If we do not hit the flop there is nothing we can do, because cbet means wasting money. Why then build a big preflop pot. We will easily build our pot later depending on the flop.
• 11. We should not think about our losses in the play against donks. Thinking about dropping non showdown red line or worrying that our parameters at a particular table with a donk diverge from the typical ‘standards’ of a good player we are, is very bad. We should not worry that our continuation bet is dropping or our aggression factor has decreased from 2-3 to 0.3 (on a table with agrodonks). Adjusting to the opponent is more important. After all we should remember that often it is enough to win with a donk once to take away all that he has.

Summary

To sum up, if you want to deal well with different kinds of donks and fleece them of their money, you should be resistant to failures and be able to adjust the play fully. You must forget about all the instructions for behaving in particular situations, how many percent of such and such an action you should do, what losses are good. Contrary to popular belief, such a profitable play with donks requires the right frame of mind. It is important to get rid of fear to valuebet donks and discomfort in the play with donks.