Dealing with Donk Bets...

[Asgrow13]

Here's a situation that seems to come up fairly often, and I'm curious how most people handle it.

Say you're playing .25/.50 NL, 6 max, and you pick up AKo in the cutoff. Folded to you, you make a standard raise to $2 and one of the blinds calls. Flop comes Q-8-3 rainbow and the blind leads out for $2 or $3. The way I see it at this point I have several options:

1) Fold. I'm probably behind at this point unless he's getting really crazy and so I can cut my losses and let the hand go.
2) Call. I probably have 6 outs to take the lead, plus I get to find out how strong he really is. If the turn blanks and he leads out again, then I know I'm behind and I'm done with the hand. If he checks, I can either take a free card or try to push him off it.
3) Raise. He can be leading at me with a lot of different hands... pocket pairs below the board, middle pair, top pair, a set etc. If he has top pair or a set clearly he's not goin anywhere, but if he has a pocket pair or middle pair maybe he folds, maybe he lets me take a free card on the turn to spike a king, or if I feel like he's weak I can fire at the turn and try to take it down then.

Assuming you don't have any reads to go with, what's your standard line here? Raising is great when it works, but when it doesn't all the sudden I'm in a huge pot with ace high. Folding is clearly the easy way out, but I don't wanna get run over. Calling seems weak too. Thoughts?

[Hoopster81]

a mix of 1 and 3 works well

[EMc]

Wayyyy to dependant to make any significant comments here. Post specific hands to get a feel for the situation.

[Asgrow13]

Thought I did... Say you have AKo in the CO, raise to 4BB, the big blind calls and leads out for half the pot on a board of Q-8-3. Until you have a read is this just a fold? Or is it better to raise and see how they respond so you can start getting a better feel for the villian?

[kurto]

I'm a big advocate of reads. I pretty much just play safe and easy for 2 rotations until I've seen how people are playing. (at the $50 tables... that's enough to get a read on 1/2 the players)

Then you can know if they'll bluff donk bet... will they laydown if they feel weak... etc.

I'll also say that I mix it up here. Maybe 1 time in 4 you reraise. (if its a true donkbet... but 1/2 psb isn't necessarily a sign of weakness)

If there's other players in the pot, and I have no other drawss, I'll usually fold.

[davekngs]

I rarely raise here unless I have some sort of read. with no reads I'll usually just fold but I will think about calling to see what he does on the turn sometimes as I probably have 6 outs anyway