Dealing with loose donkbetors

acceleration · Dealing with loose donkbetors

Hey guys,

I just had really unpleasant guy to play with (for me at least).

He was overall very passive (allowed me to limp, never punished my limps, rarely if ever raised preflop ...) but he was donking flops (no matter if it was limped or raised pot) both as a bluff and for value (with all sorts of hands really, air, bottom-mid-top pair, nuts ...) and you never knew whether he is folding to a raise or not.

How do you counter these ?

aggsyb

Call down in standard spots see if hes double barreling air hands , see if hes overplaying made weaker hands depending on frequencies if hes doing it very often start raising any draws (depending on board textures) I find people who donk alot are fairly easily exploited, once you get a handle on their frequencies and ranges I would start raising more pots over limping as your going to be taking bigger pots down post.

acceleration

aggsyb

acceleration

I would describe his flop play in this way:

He donked and if I raised, he only folded total air with no equity. He would not fold a gutter or bottom pair.

If he had some kind of midpair hand, he´d donk flop and when I called he´d bet smaller on turn & river. Sometimes even the same with bottom pair.
(like if he was "scared" about me calling and having better pair)

With very strong hand (TPGK and better ..) he´d donk flop, and close to pot turn & river.

His flop donkbets was pretty much same size all the time.

savrababa

If you have these reads then I think it is pretty easy to exploit the guy.
If he is not folding to reraises then raise him for value.
Call with your semi strong hands and draws and re-evaluate depending on what he does on the turn.
The real problem with him would be if you are card dead.

kierkegaard1

U Cook Socks

kierkegaard1

sure, but only with a decent range, right?

what about Q7, for example? If you're 4betting all of your Ax/Kx/Qx then our 4bet range is pretty wide and exploitable.
developing a limping range with hands that have top pair value but can't stand a 3bet seems the best option?

U Cook Socks

kierkegaard1

i generally don't advocate limping when stacks are shallow from stuff i learned with primo who learned from livb. people generally aren't 3betting you enough to be exploited and even if they 3bet you like 2/3 times in short succession they'll generally be afraid to keep doing it and tighten up. if they are relentless, though, that's a time to start developing a limping range.
In general, once they see we're opening 90% of buttons then they'll start to 3bet more, but by the time this happens, they've been exploited already by calling/folding too much, and we can realise that they're adapting to our opening % and from this we should be able to develop a better raise/calling range than their 3bet range based on this information.

hands we should have in our limping range <25bb should be hands that have top pair value. we shouldnt be limping our 56/67 etc as these hands have more value deeper stacked. when stacks are short we're looking for top pair hands (like, 10bbs deep for example, we're never folding top pair ever, but would if circumstances are right 100bbs deep, for an extreme example)
so we can have K8 or 9T or TJ stuff like that in a limp range that has good top/mid pair value but also cant stand a 3bet shove.
with 67, though, it's a raise/fold as our value comes from taking down the pot asap this shallow.

kind of deviated from your question, though. by developing a limping range 50bb deep for example we're not always limp calling and we're not always folding flops to bets. it's better to play a small pot in position than a big one where we're not the aggressor. and we lose too many chips by raise/folding these hands. and if we're always getting raised then we can adapt our limping range, too.
we're not limping to "hit" we're limping to keep the pot small and so stacks are deeper for us to excercise our presumed post-flop advantage.

also something to note that we're not suddenly limping a TONNE of hands. we still have a reasonable raising range (albeit tighter) and we have a 4bet bluff range of Ax for example, and a wider 4bet value range obv. and we'll be open folding more PF. so overall our ranges are a lot stronger vs a very aggro and loose OOP villain

U Cook Socks

That's great thanks.

It's just a case of me working harder (even harder) on some of this stuff. I feel I have a fair solid deepstack game for the level I am playing at least, 75 to say 40BB.

Sometimes I get a bit lost in the part of the match where you are to deep to open shove, but things start becoming difficult when you min raise. Obv some players are so easy to play it's pretty easy to work out, but I mean even some bad players are difficult to combat, sometimes even more difficult than a solid reg, cos at least you can work out what the hell they are doing, even if they aren't giving anything away.

Obviously I am working with Borg on this, and he makes it all sound so simple, but meh, for me I still get a bit lost at times. I guess first thing is to identify the type of player you are playing, then work out if your hand is strong enough to raise call, if not, then raise/fold , then maybe limp/call, then I guess Limp/fold, and if all other options fail, then open folding is the only option.

There are some gray areas that pop up though, in my mind when I am playing. For a quick example, 17bb deep, you have say K2o lets say. It's to weak to Raise/call, definitely not strong enough to limp/call (right?) Open folding a K 17bb deep is pretty much out of the question (right?) so raise/folding seems the only option. That is kind of how I am thinking about these situations anyway, if it is flawed thinking then please feel free to tell me.

I also realised that you were talking about when stacks were a bit deeper now, so I also apologise for taking the thread off track.

chesslw

I find endgame situations very interesting as well- although tbh I should work on other parts of my game more.

I don't know if you've seen the other thread I made on shallow stack play- I found that the edge that the small blind has is very small even against someone who only 3bets or folds under 20bb- the big blind can use an unexploitable 3bet shove range (like Nash)...

I'm pretty sure the big blind can do better having a flatting range as well.

kierkegaard1

K2 is an easy raise fold.

U Cook Socks