Fold to donk bet (FDnk)

What it measures

Fold to donk bet looks at the other side of a donk bet. The player held the betting lead: they raised preflop, or bet or raised last on the previous street. Before they could act on the new street, a player out of position bet into them. The stat asks how often they fold.

At the table: the cutoff opens, the big blind calls, and the big blind bets the flop before the cutoff can c-bet. The cutoff folds, calls or raises. Fold to donk bet counts the folds, raise donk bet counts the raises, and the rest are calls.

It isn’t fold to c-bet, which is the caller folding to the aggressor’s bet, and it isn’t fold to probe, which covers leads after the aggressor checked the previous street behind. Here the player folding is the one who expected to do the betting, so the number measures how attached they stay to their range once someone takes the initiative away.

How it’s calculated

Fold to donk bet = folds ÷ times they faced a donk bet as the previous street’s aggressor.

• Chance: they were the aggressor going into the street (the preflop raiser on the flop, the last bettor or raiser of the flop on the turn, of the turn on the river), a player out of position to them bet before they acted, and they then faced that bet.
• Counts: if they folded.
• Excluded: streets where fewer than two players could still bet (not everyone all-in). If another player raised the lead before it reached them, they’re facing a raise rather than the lead, and the spot doesn’t count.

Callers in between don’t remove the chance: if the small blind leads and the big blind calls, the preflop raiser on the button still has one. The stat is kept by street only, with no position or pot-type versions, and leads of every size count together. Raise donk bet uses the same chances but only when they had chips behind to raise, so 100% minus fold minus raise is close to, but not exactly, the call rate.

Example: Lena was the preflop raiser and faced a flop lead 22 times. She folded 9, called 10 and raised 3. Fold to donk bet is 9 ÷ 22 = 41%. If she could raise in all 22 spots, raise donk bet is 3 ÷ 22 = 14%, and she called 10 ÷ 22 = 45%.

Why it matters

This is the number that tells you whether leading is a weapon or a leak for you. A lead of a third of the pot needs to win 24.8% of the time as a pure bluff; a half-pot lead needs 33.3%. Against an aggressor who folds 50% to leads, both make money with any two cards before you even count your equity when called. Against one who folds 20%, only value leads do.

It also shows how the aggressor handles a range that missed. The preflop raiser’s range is full of overcards and air on many flops, and in theory they should defend enough against small leads to stop that from being exploited. At low stakes, many players lean hard one way: fold everything that missed (“they must have it”) or float everything (“they’re just trying to take it”). Both habits show up here.

Finally, it changes how you play your own strong hands out of position. Against a player who folds to leads a lot, check your value hands and let them c-bet into you; against one who rarely folds, lead them.

Too low, about right, too high

Fold to donk bet has a typical range, so the HUD colors it, but it has no read hint, so it never turns into a read sentence. The calls below are yours to make.

On the flop, turn and river

Flop: fold to donk bet

FDnk typical 30–55%

Flop leads come into the preflop raiser, whose range is at its widest and has missed most flops. That’s why the typical range sits as high as it does: folding the worst high cards to a lead is normal. On low, connected boards the raiser’s range misses even more and the caller’s range hits more, so folds should rise. On ace-high and king-high boards, the raiser should fold much less.

A small flop lead needs few folds to work (a 25% lead needs 20%), and many raisers can’t defend enough against it without calling some very weak hands. If their flop FDnk is above 55%, lead a third of the pot with your draws and some backdoor hands on the boards that favor you. If it’s under 30%, the raiser is floating, so lead your value hands and plan to keep betting.

Turn: fold to donk bet

FDnk typical 30–55%

The turn aggressor is whoever bet or raised the flop last, so most turn chances follow one line: they bet the flop, got called, and the caller leads the turn. Their range already includes every flop bluff they fired, plus the value. A high turn number says their flop bets were often one-and-done; a low one says they keep going with any equity once they’ve bet.

Turn leads are usually stronger than flop leads at low stakes, because the caller often leads after improving, so folding more is defensible. But the pot is bigger and the price still matters: against a half-pot lead the aggressor needs 25% equity, and pair-plus-draw hands usually have it.

Exploit: against a turn FDnk above 55%, lead the turn after calling a flop bet on cards that help your range, such as overcards to a low flop and straight or flush cards you can hold. Against one under 30%, lead only for value and size up.

River: fold to donk bet

FDnk typical 30–55%

On the river the aggressor is holding a bluff-catcher question. They bet or raised the turn, and now face a lead with no cards to come. Many river leads at low stakes are small blocking bets with medium hands, which the aggressor should rarely fold to: against a 33% lead, a call only needs to win 19.9% of the time. A high river FDnk means they let small bets push them off hands that win often enough.

Big river leads from passive players are another matter; those are mostly value, and folding to them is fine. That’s why the river number depends so much on who has been leading into them, and why it fills so slowly that it’s rarely reliable on its own.

Exploit: against a river FDnk over 55%, lead your missed draws at the size they fold to. Against one under 30%, bet your thin value hands yourself instead of checking and hoping they bet, because they call leads.

When it’s your own number

There’s no read hint for this stat, so it never shows up as a warning on your badge, but anyone running a HUD on you can see the number. If yours is high, observant players will lead into you as a bluff whenever the board misses your preflop range. If it’s very low, they’ll stop bluff-leading and lead thinner for value, knowing you call.

To check yourself, compare your flop number with the minimum defense frequency against the size people lead with. Against a 33% lead, MDF is 75.2%, so folding much more than a quarter of your range lets any two cards lead profitably. You don’t need to defend that much against honest leaders, but if your FDnk is over 55%, defend more: call with overcards plus a backdoor draw, any pair and gutshots, and raise some of your best draws.

Using it on the HUD

Fold to donk bet shows on the badge of the previous street’s aggressor when someone else holds the lead, and on the aggressor’s badge as soon as they face a lead, next to raise donk bet. On your turn, the panel shows it when you’re about to lead into them, alongside their fold rate for each bet size.

Gold means over 55%, blue under 30%, and a faded number has fewer than 12 chances. There are no narrower versions, so the street number is all you get. A 50% fold rate over 30 chances is ±9 points and over 100 chances ±5, and most players face leads rarely, so read a flop number only once it has 30 or more chances, and treat the turn and river numbers as rough even then.

Read it with fold vs bet on the same street to see whether they fold to leads more than to bets in general.

Questions