Comments on: The Art of Donkey Dodging

By: Svcmgr

Svcmgr — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:31:02 +0000

Of course, if I do it, it isn’t a Donkey play…lol
Just kidding.
The only caveat I would throw in what you said Blagz is that in a Tournament situation, where you have a chance to take out a player, this is accepted play. (your risk – low, your potential gain – high)
If you are the “big stack” and you do this and loose, you won’t be posting in a forum about a bad beat or a Donkey play.
The Donk factor comes into play when someone who considers themselves a “better” player, “advertises” a strong hand and possibly has a stong hand and still gets called and or raised by inferior cards. This type of play isn’t normally mentioned either UNLESS the “better” player gets taken out or crippled by the play. (your risk – high, your potential gain – medium).
I also think sometimes, the players ego (the one who is calling out the Donks) needs to be considered. A big ego, can promote the Donkey calling. There are some players out there who think that just because they raise or re-raise a pot, anyone who calls them is a Donk. The though process of “how dare he call me” kicks in. I have seen poor players with big ego’s call people Donks because of this but with a small amount of introspect they would realize that maybe they are the ones being the Donk…..
Anyway, interesting discussion….

By: Blagger

Blagger — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:54:43 +0000

As usual Dave, a well thought out and considered post, with some solid advice thrown in. There isn’t much I can add, except maybe people should be more aware of the potential of those seemingly donk calls with poor cards.

Normally at the worst, any two cards are only going to be 2/1 dogs going in pre-flop and 2/1 are game enough odds for many people to chance their arm on a bet. Especially if they have the chips to spare.

I’ll do it sometimes myself and we all do it when we have a chip stack and a low stack is all in. We all generally call those low stack all ins with basically any 2 cards in our hands.. we make a donkey play in effect. And it isn’t uncommon for us to take the low stack out of the game with such hands.

By: Gopher

Gopher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:02:05 +0000

Good post Dave!

I done exactly what you said in your first point last week and was called by a donk, although it was a headhunter tourny (the whole point being that you need to take people out to increase your cash!). I had pocket Kings and pushed all-in pre-flop and was called by an Ace-three of diamonds. The flop was fine but they hit a runner-runner flush and left me with 10 chips. Needless to say, I went out very shortly after. A prime example of the donk getting lucky purely because of my poor pre-flop play. If I had put in a smaller raise instead of all-in, I’m pretty positive I would have taken down the pot post-flop.