So just played another couple of tournaments after that horrible play I made, and again I raise from the button get flatted and quickly donked into and I have top pair. Now I know there's only a pot sized bet left so decided that I'd let him donk off with his entire range on the turn. The board was AQ9r and the turn was an innocuous 5. So I snap called the turn and he had pocket 55. WTF????!!!! I seriously need to develop a sound strategy for donk betting, it tilts the hell out of me.
Psychology
OK, so how does a fish think when he sees a flop and decides to donk? Well, either he thinks his hand is good - no matter what it is - or he thinks making you fold is the way to win at poker. He is not sophisticated enough to know that it's better to let his opponent bet a wide range by checking. On the flip side, there is very very rarely ever a fish that will also donk his strong hands - they love to slow play - so we can almost always put only pairs and bluffs and draws in his donking range, which gives us a capped range. In this instance it makes sense to bluff raise often when we have equity. If we do not have equity it is difficult because if he thinks his hand is good he will not fold. This includes draws. In the final table instance earlier my raise was bad because I was bluffing against a big stack that had me covered and I was risking too much by shipping (by ICM maths) given I only had 25% equity or so when called. It would have made more sense to float and get the money in if I hit on the turn.
Timing
I think it is also useful to evaluate donk betting using timing. If a habitual donk bettor thinks before betting I find that it's usually a made pair or draw type hand and the very quick bets is often a pure bluff (a premeditated action) or sometimes a low pocket pair that is being turned into a bluff.
Strategy?
Raise or fold with nothing - tend to raise if his preflop calling range is wide
Raise with big hands - make him pay for draws or get value from pairs that won't fold
Raise with good draws - fold out his random shit and build a big pot for when we hit
Call with medium hands (inc. implied odds draws like the final table hand) - let him continue to fire with his whole range, and raise when we hit
Anyway, sorry for the rambling strategy post, this was more to do with getting some tilt off of my chest rather than a proper strategy article. But if you are struggling against donk bettors post a comment with your observations. GL
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