Overbetting against a donkey.

[dsaxton]

Big blind is a donkey. On a previous hand she called me down with bottom pair, then bottom pair with a gutshot after I'd raised preflop.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (6 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

Button ($44.65)
Hero ($187.65)
BB ($310.45)
UTG ($162.20)
MP ($83)
CO ($203.05)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 3, K.
1 fold, MP calls $2, 2 folds, Hero completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($6) 3, K, 5 (3 players)
Hero bets $6, BB calls $6, MP folds.

Turn: ($18) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $20, BB calls $20.

River: ($58) K (2 players)
Hero bets $100, BB calls $100.

Final Pot: $258

[gabe]

i love doing that.

and it seems the more you do it, the more they think you are bluffing.

[dalecooper]

Huge fan of that approach. Bet what you think they'll pay.

[alias2211]

and it seems the more you do it, the more they think you are bluffing.

gabisms = truthisms

w3rd. you can make back every cbet they called you down with and more on the right hand, such as this. nice work.

[siknd]

lol. am i the only one getting sick of the conceited view most posters here have of eveyone except themselves?

make these jugdements at your own peril. my opinion is that deciding someone is a 'donkey' actually clouds what should be your impartial, ice-cold analysis.

poker by definition is all about the separation in skill between players. identify weaknesses and exploit them. but dont dismiss a players potential to hurt you because you underestimate them.

this post would actually make sense if hero had much weaker holdings than the third nuts! but im sure that none of you have ever walked into a boat before.

im just cranky today, so dont take any of this too personally.

[dalecooper]

lol. am i the only one getting sick of the conceited view most posters here have of eveyone except themselves?

Probably. Maybe you should quit poker - poker players are largely a very conceited bunch. But the fact is, sometimes there is no quicker, better description of a player than "donkey," "maniac," or "calling station." Fact is, those terms exist because they very accurately describe a lot of bad players. It's good communicative shorthand.

make these jugdements at your own peril. my opinion is that deciding someone is a 'donkey' actually clouds what should be your impartial, ice-cold analysis.

If he instead said simply "player called me down with bottom pair once and bottom pair with a gutshot draw once, in situations where most good players would have folded" - is that really any different? As I look at saxton's post it looks like it's as much about a read as about insulting or dismissing someone. You can think it's conceited or not, but if I have a read that someone is a bad, loose player I'm going to use that information to separate them from their money. Whether I laugh about what a donkey they are later is basically irrelevant.

poker by definition is all about the separation in skill between players. identify weaknesses and exploit them. but dont dismiss a players potential to hurt you because you underestimate them.

Seems like a discussion for another thread with more information in it. You're getting all this from him labelling this player as a donk?

this post would actually make sense if hero had much weaker holdings than the third nuts! but im sure that none of you have ever walked into a boat before.

This post might be clearer if the poster revealed the other player's holdings. But the point should be taken anyway: if you have someone calling you down obsessively with weak hands, you bet the shit out of your good ones. In this case, top and bottom pair is not exactly a monster - our hero was betting hard all the way; the river boat is just a nice bit of icing.

Case in point: one time I had a true donkey (all dismissiveness and arrogance intended in full) playing at a table with me and taking all comers. He would bust out and rebuy, double or triple up off some random bit of luck, then waste it all and rebuy again. It initiated a real feeding frenzy, but I was approaching him differently from everybody else. I never continuation bet against him; I would simply bet hard when I had a pair or better, and I took a lot of money off him in hand after hand, playing very straight-forward poker. Eventually I had a hand where I had aces and small-raised. He min-raised me and I went all in over his head for a full buy-in... a really ridiculous overbet. Any thinking player would have folded, but King Donk called me with A6 suited (cruelly, the board came out A66xx... how's that for a punchline). I broke him, and it was thanks to a read. And that read involved a non-random assembly of the letters D, O, N, K, E, and Y - flashing in big neon lights.

[Rondavu]

God bless you Dalecooper. If I had a cooch, I would give birth to your children.

[alias2211]

lol. am i the only one getting sick of the conceited view most posters here have of eveyone except themselves?

make these jugdements at your own peril. my opinion is that deciding someone is a 'donkey' actually clouds what should be your impartial, ice-cold analysis.

poker by definition is all about the separation in skill between players. identify weaknesses and exploit them. but dont dismiss a players potential to hurt you because you underestimate them.

this post would actually make sense if hero had much weaker holdings than the third nuts! but im sure that none of you have ever walked into a boat before.

im just cranky today, so dont take any of this too personally.

i agree that emotion should be banished from the poker table, as well as the warning about underestimation. those are good points to keep in mind. but i hope you would agree with dsaxton's premise: bet hard for value when you see someone who is repeatedly calling you down w/ mid or bottom pair. i always take the donkey/'rilla name calling with a bit of salt on these forums, but this is certainly an observation that can prove to be valuable when you notice the time is right for application.

in conclusion, bet the shit out of mid pair caller-downers when you have a reasonably good hand. they will call you more often than not, and more often than not, you will win more as a result.

[dalecooper]

^ 'zactly.

Rondavu - disturbing.

Relevant little blurb from cardplayer:

"In this column, we will take a look at another way that our egos can affect our game. Most of us already know that it is a cardinal sin to allow our bravado to have any say in the plays that we make at the poker table. As in all competitive situations, one of the worst mistakes you can ever make is to underestimate your opponents. The same holds true on the felt, of course. There are few poorer decisions that players can make than deciding their table is full of donkeys and they can run over them with any two cards, regardless of game circumstances.

"Whether you are playing with a bunch of monkeys who should be swinging in the trees is immaterial. It simply means that you should be employing different strategies against them. A good player just reaches into his bag of tricks to find those that work against bad players. Don’t fall into the trap of being the player who thinks he has enough moves to run over his opponents, regardless of the situation."

What I take out of that is simple: you can call 'em monkeys or donkeys or whatever, but don't let arrogance control your gameplan. Your arrogance and your master planner, the little guy controlling how you play the cards, should exist in separate parts of the brain. They only get to send each other written correspondence periodically.

[siknd]

dale, i dont think we are really disagreeing with each other here. im not really concerned with labelling or the specific use of wording, but the overall mindset that must accompany a view of ones opponents as complete retards.

all we are talking about here is value betting. you always bet the strength that you speculate your opponent considers himself to have, ie making a callable bet. obviously a weaker player will overvalue his hand = overbetting.

[zenbitz]

So if I call down Fnord with bottom pair/gutshot, I'm a donk?
Or only dsaxon?

"You're a Donkey, anyway".