We’ve all used the term “donk” to describe a player that just beat us with an ‘inferior’ hand or to describe a player that made a bad call and doubled up the short stack on the bubble. The term is thrown around freely to describe anyone that beat us that we felt we should have beaten. And of course as poker players, we feel that we should have beaten everybody. But really, what is a donk?

The term donk is short for donkey. This is used to describe a bad player, a player that has no idea what he or she is doing, or a player that is new to the game. As poker players, shouldn’t we want a table full of bad players each time we sit down or log in? The more donks the merrier. But that’s rarely how the term is used. “I’d win if it weren’t for all of the donks” sounds a lot better to our egos than “I’d win if it weren’t for all of the bad players”. What? We can’t beat bad players? If we can’t beat bad players, then who can we beat?

So, if donk doesn’t exactly describe a bad player, who does it describe? I’ve seen players called a donk any time they won a pot with anything other than AA or KK. “What? You called my all in with AQ (and won)? You donk.” “Oh my God (OMG in chat speak), you called my minimum raise with suited connectors, flopped a straight, and slow played my over-pair costing me all of my chips? You donk.” “You called my bluff (just because I’ve played every pot)? You donk.”

In every case, “the donk” was raking chips into his stack. So why is it we feel the need to label this player that won a pot? They won, doesn’t that count for anything? Isn’t that how we keep score in poker? The answer lies within our own ego. We just can’t face the reality that we were just outplayed or that luck is a part of poker. There are better players than us. There are many times when a LAG game beats a TAG game. But rather than question our own play, it’s much easier to label the player as a lucky donk.

Since it’s usually the player that won the pot that gets called a donk, doesn’t it seem like it would be better to be a donk and win than a “good” player and lose. Like they say, “You should never apologize when you’re raking the pot.” We all make “bad” plays and get lucky. We all make good plays and get beat. It’s just a part of poker. If the best cards won every hand, it’d be a pretty boring game.

So the next time you lose to someone that played a hand different than you would or that just got lucky, just say nice hand and move on. As a player, you want your opponents to play inferior hands. It’ll even out in the long run. Besides, the donk will be too busy stacking chips to really care anyway.