you cannot blame your losses on donks

It is amazing how often i see solid (i do not treat solid as a compliment by the way) players blame donks for their losses either generally or in a particular table/hand. The internet is FULL of players who play poorly and without them it would be hard to beat the rake/vigorish if you were anything short of a poker god (and if you are a poker god you are probably not reading this in the first place!). Most good players who play in 5-50$ buy ins will be relying on their opponents to make poor plays for most of their profits.

The advent of the likes of sharkscope and thepokerdb etc enables us to establish whether or not someone who calls all ins with 49os actually plays well enough to make/lose money. Generally it can be satisfying to know that some of the craziest players do have rather high negatives for their stats but this does not mean that because you do not do some of the aggressive and often questionable plays that they do you will make a profit or that your game is not without substantial holes. As the good book says dont overlook the plank in your own eye because of the splinter you see in someone elses.


It amazes me how often people will blame a poor player for their losses. Some will even blame poker sites for their randomisation software or stay clear of a site with loose players which for profitability is probably the worst course of action. Take the following three examples:-

Example 1

7 players left you have 3000 as does 1 other person - you have ak
betting goes call 100 (BB), call then lucky donk goes all in for 1500 - it folds to you and you call to see he has 78s. He wins. If you look up the odds calculator you will see that whilst he was the dog he had honest chances of winning the hand (30% or higher)

Loads of people would critisise his play here - but first - its not too terrible and second your call has probably on those cards had a positive EV - so why critisise/blame him for doing something that has helped you statistically? The fact that the cards went against you is irrelevant - do not personalise it. It is not the randomisation software and it is not the donk's fault - there is luck in cards and it will not always fall in your favour.

Example 2

you have 78s and blinds are the same as the last example someone raises UTG to 300 - you think they have AA and they are the player with 3k in chips. They have tended to bet most flops that they bet preflop on and rarely fold hands that they play although they are pretty tight. Flop comes with a 7 and 2 of your suit - he bets 500, you call turn gives you three of a kind he bets 600 and you raise him all in to be called a donk. Did you misplay the hand? I would say no but his not respecting the posibility that you might have had 2nd pair and other draws and might have been chasing preflop make his play poor. Ultimately what is important is how you play the hand - he clearly misplayed it and can hardly blame the cards or your play for that matter for his loss - he should have had a small win, the cards went against him and he got blinkered by greed for your chips.

Example 3
You have 10k in chips and the blinds are low (50/100). You have aa and bet 500 to get 2 callers and the flop of 224 one caller has 30k in chips before the hand and the other had 3.5k before the hand. You bet another 500 to get reraised all in by the 3.5k and then called by the 30k hand. You have just moved tables and have no reads - it is a 10$ tourney. Do you call here? If you do and the river is 6 and the 30k puts you all in do you call? If you do you can hardly feel hard done to if someone has 2x in their hand or even if the 30k had 35s etc. Would a call of 500 with 35 be a good play? I would say probably not - would a call on the flop with 35 be a good play - definately not but would your call on the flop and turn be good? You have to realise that it is this last one that is important - other people possibly misplaying a hand is not a get out of jail free card.

If you misplay these hands then you will be lowering your EV and you have noone to blame but yourself. A poor player will blame donks a good player will correct a leak that is letting some people chase and then sometimes win all of your chips in what is a pot that you should be escaping from.

great post ben, i cannot agree with you more. while i do occasionaly complain about donks winning hands from me, but i do not blame them for me losing all around when i am on a bad streak. bad beats happen to everyone, and when people go all in with 84s its a bad play by them, but if the cards fall bad, you cant blame that on them. once again, i really like this post.

Sorry Ben but I cant agree with you on that statement. I make more money on the "solid" players than i do the donks. And its the Donks who take most of my money and not the solid players.

When you lose a hand usually 2 things happened.... #1 you were outplayed or #2 you played it correctly and your opponent sucked-out. How many times does each of these happen to you? For me I would say 20%-80%. Only 20% of the time will i say to myself, "Damn I made a bad play there". Whilst 80% of the time my opponent did not have the proper odds to call but did anyway and made a hand.

For me its easier to read a solid player, thus i can extract more chips and more importantly lose less of them myself. Against a Donk its far more difficult to get a read because you just never know where they are or where they are going.

Now a solid player knows that unless he's up against a higher pair he can play 8-7s and only be at the least a 40% underdog. While a Donk has no clue but they are suited and connected and I see others do it so it must be a good play. I have no problem with the player who calls my raise with 8-7s and wins vs. my AKs if he knows why he's doing it. But you see the solid player who does it knows that he's at worst a 40% underdog as long as he's sure I'm not holding a higher pair. Also, Its not a play he's going to make everytime. The situation has to be right. He is probably in position, he most likely knows that he will have me isolated thus increases his chances of winning and will know that if he hits middle pair with an Ace or King on the board he might have to let the hand go and would be willing to do that.

Now the Donk on the other hand just knows he's seen some other people do it and it seemed to work for them. He doesnt know the odds, doesnt care about them, doesnt care if others are in the pot, and will never fold if he hits any pair including bottom pair with both an Ace and a King on the board.

And while a majority of my winnings comes from these type of players an equal # of losses are given by them as well. The only solution I have come up with thus far is to play defensive against them. Minimize your losses by not investing too much when you know your up against a Donk. The pots are smaller and in most cases you give them the proper odds to call but your losses are smaller as well. They dont understand pot odds anyway so why try and bet them off a gutshot str8 draw? Save that sort of play for a solid player who knows better and will lay his hand down.

Just my 2 cents worth

ok bsquad what we differ over is not too substantial

"When you lose a hand usually 2 things happened.... #1 you were outplayed or #2 you played it correctly and your opponent sucked-out. How many times does each of these happen to you? For me I would say 20%-80%. Only 20% of the time will i say to myself, "Damn I made a bad play there". Whilst 80% of the time my opponent did not have the proper odds to call but did anyway and made a hand. "

If someone calls a big bet against you and you lose and you were a favorite it was not them that beat you - you beat them and the cards then lost you chips. All I will say is that people have short memories about their good luck and long memories about their bad - and too many people risk their entire chip stack frequently and will enventually find themselves busted with no-one really to blame but themselves. Much of the time i get busted I was in a situation where i could not really fold but get outdrawn. Quite often someone will have a decent number of outs and will win 30% or so of the time - you are going to lose a lot of these but people tend to forget about them when they win. I regard myself as lucky if my AA holds up or if my ak holds to 78s because I know that this will not always happen. Not "won the lottery lucky" but lucky enough. People often forget all the time their hand actually beats other hands when their opponents had some outs.

You talk about solid - easy to read players, these guys are donks in my book everybit as much as someone who makes strange bets and calls. Anyone with easy to exploit tells is a donk. Against wild aggressive players I tend to play similar to yourself unless i value the T$ value (real value for a big win in a pot against them) as worth the risk. Quite often this will be in higher buy in events where there are fewer wild/crazy players but equally fewer players that are 100% predictable and less safe to accumulate chips.

I dont treat "solid" as a compliment either but I think our definition of "donk" might be different. I dont think because someone is easy to read they are a donk. I can be very easy to read at times but i dont feel I'm a donk. I'm giving an image that my play is easy to read in order to extract far more chips than i previously gave away. (Setting someone up so to speak) I feel a "solid player is one who knows the circumstances behind his actions. If he raises ( he knows why he is raising) If he's calling (he knows why hes calling). He might not be a proffessional by any means but will usually finish in the top 25% of the tournament. These are the types of players I count on to make the majority of my money.

Its on a rare occasion that we find ourselves with the nuts before the last card hits the board, and even then we usually win with only the best hand of the players that chose to go to a showdown. A "SOLID" player can play a hand perfectly from pre-flop to the turn in hopes of winning without having to see the last card. A "DONK" on the other hand is usually relying solely on the luck of the cards and wants to see that last card. He is usually willing to risk any ammount of chips he has in his quest to get lucky , and puts the "SOLID" player to the test. He has a draw with one card to come and has a given ammount of outs. The SOLID player is ahead in the hand and also has some cards still left in the deck that will give him the absolute nuts. So what is the solid player to do. Fold before the river card is delt. Of course not you know the odds and you should come out on top more often than not. Then it happens. The "DONK" sucks out the winning hand, knocking you out of the tourney. If you were playing another "SOLID" player, or a player with any sense, you would have won the hand before the river because he would have folded on the flop or turn, not wanting to risk his chips on a 5% chance of winning. So in those situation I do blame the DONK. I'm like BSQUAD and have better results against good players. DONKS play just to play, not to win. Unfortunately they get lucky against better players and send them to early exits. I find that as a MTT or SnG progresses there are less DONKS to deal with. Its rare that the go very far and make the cash. Luck in poker can only take you so far. Granted, its an important aspect in poker, but SOLID and KNOWLEDGABLE play is the only way to play and be successful.

"So in those situation I do blame the DONK"

they are giving you great odds for their chips though Ref and this will count for loads of chips - also realistically i will be amazed if you could back up your claims that you do not get more from the loose players - surely we all make loads from people calling our aa with a7s etc even if we occasionally get busted. I had a guy go all in on jk7 they had 98 ( and caught their straight against me - but I would want them to bet every time and every time I would call with the hand i had against them. Some you lose but most you win. Their poor play would normally result in a big win for me and that is what is important

i agree with both of you and i want to say tanks for the poker lesson .I learn something very usefull today.

My 2 cents
The donks are out there absolutely.
There is no real true way to beat them, obviously, they can call/raise with anything. But there is also no true formula for winning either. It is all, in the end, about adapting.
I lost most of my roll on PS. And now i play mostly freerolls until i can deposit again. It used to be that I finished ITM very rarely. Then I changed it up and got more aggressive ( i copied a style i witnessed). Now i am finishing either very well (final tabling) or not at all. And im ITM maybe 40% for these silly things- which is good- im playing against donks mostly.

The key has been, for me, aggression. But i do switch geers.

The moral of my story is that there IS a key to winning against the average moron, but it will always be a risky venture. Long term, you will win. But don't assume your style of play is the best against them. A "solid player" , in my experience, is going to lose against a player who has no care in the world. He will simply call you with anything. Your "solid playing" will blind out. You have to step up your style against them and take some chances. If you play "safe" in a MTT anyway, you will find yourself close to the money, but with nothign other to do than to look for all in hands.

Alli