Another free showdown play (AQs)

[Nate tha' Great]

Here I've been ranting about the limitations about the free showdown play and I dug an example up from just a couple of days ago in which I made a highly questionable move. It's one of those things that made a shitload of sense at the time but looks silly in retrospect.

SB was unknown and I was planning on folding to a 3-bet.

Party Poker 15/30 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with Q/images/graemlins/club.gif, A/images/graemlins/club.gif.
<font color="666666">1 fold</font>, UTG+1 calls, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises</font>, <font color="666666">4 folds</font>, SB calls, BB calls, UTG+1 calls.

Flop: (8 SB) Q/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 7/images/graemlins/club.gif, K/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue">(4 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">SB bets</font>, BB folds, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls.

Turn: (5 BB) J/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">SB bets</font>, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises</font>, SB calls.

River: (9 BB) 4/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
SB checks, Hero checks.

Final Pot: 9 BB
<font color="green">Main Pot: 9 BB, between Hero and SB.</font>

[Nate tha' Great]

I was planning on checking behind on a river blank but was prepared to bet certain cards either for value or as a bluff.

[Jezebel]

[ QUOTE ]
It's one of those things that made a shitload of sense at the time but looks silly in retrospect.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm curious why you think this line is silly in retrospect. Against a decent opponent your raise on the turn could fold a king winning you the pot. If he 3 bets you then most likely not only is your queen not good, but neither is Aces up, allowing you to fold with confidence.

If you are up against a manianc that will 3 bet a hand worse than yours in this spot, then calling down may be the best line, but againt most opponents I like this play.

Do you think it was silly because you should have value bet your queen on the river?

[Nate tha' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's one of those things that made a shitload of sense at the time but looks silly in retrospect.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm curious why you think this line is silly in retrospect. Against a decent opponent your raise on the turn could fold an Ace winning you the pot. If he 3 bets you then most likely not only is your queen not good, but neither is Aces up, allowing you to fold with confidence.

If you are up against a manianc that will 3 bet a hand worse than yours in this spot, then calling down may be the best line, but againt most opponents I like this play.

Do you think it was silly because you should have value bet your queen on the river?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm starting to like the play again after thinking about it more. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

My thinking was that board was so scary on the turn that he'd need a pretty strong hand (or a nut flush draw) to call with (and a very strong hand to 3-bet, as you point out, which is why I thought I was giving up very little by folding; I've even seen some non-nut flushes just call here). Although that would probably include a few hands like Qx T /images/graemlins/spade.gif that would make a crying call on the river, I didn't think I was a money favorite against his range of calling hands.

[James282]

I think the Js is a terrible card for you to raise the turn with. It invites bluffs from worse pairs with the ace of spades. Yuck.
-James

[DcifrThs]

nate,

i think you mislabeled this post...it has more than just free showdown value.

when he comes out betting after calling your raise from the sb on that board it could be anything from a 7 with a flush draw, to a king, to nothing. on the turn when he bets again it looks like a queen/king with the redraw.

in terms of the raise, the way you played it makes it look like a flush draw so you're call on the flop allows the free card play on the turn...but its not the only reason a raise can be good...

in addition to gaining a possible free showdown it gives you too other advantages and maybe others that i missed:

1) you can DEFINATELY (99%) fold to a 3 bet here. if he'll 3bet you with the As or worse then god bless him but why would he open himself up to a 4bet with just a draw if he plans on calling (assuming he's thinking rationally which is a TALL ORDER)

2) you may even get a hand that has outs against you to fold OR fold a better hand...i think its clear getting any spade to fold here is a coup given your hand/pot size/ and your game plan here. getting a K to fold is just fantastic but not too likely...but THERE IS value in this regard.

all in all i think the combination of factors warrants your move given you have no worries about folding to the 3bet...you're virtually DOA once that happens.

-Barron

[STLantny]

James could you please elaborate? IMO if hes planning on calling the river, which Id assume, his line makes him the most money, and loses the least?

[mike l.]

"if he'll 3bet you with the As or worse then god bless him"

ive been playing a little party lately and this seems like a really really bad idea to fly by this sort of thinking there.

[JasonP530]

There are a few problems that I see Barron. The SB could be betting anything, but you raise will never get him to fold a King, any spade, or any pair. If he has a king, his kicker is likely tied to the board(either a T or 2 pair, and there is no way he is folding(not on Party). If he does have a K or 2 pair, he doesnt have a spade, which makes you drawing live to your straight, and possible bluff on the river if a spade comes. Youre not getting 3 bet here without a flush or a freaky AT, because they can reasonably assume you have 2 pair or a set(less likely than a flush draw that didnt raise the flop. There is no advantage to folding to a 3 bet, because you have already put the same 2 bets in the pot it would have taken to call, and you will never get a better hand to fold.

[James282]

[ QUOTE ]
"if he'll 3bet you with the As or worse then god bless him"

ive been playing a little party lately and this seems like a really really bad idea to fly by this sort of thinking there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey mike - right.

WRT to the person who asked about winning the most and losing the least - what about when you get bluffed off the best hand - or when you raise, he calls, and bets into you again on the river?
-James

[elindauer]

[ QUOTE ]
... you raise will never get him to fold a King, any spade, or any pair ...

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just silly. However, even if you believe this to be the case, raising is still correct for value.

Good luck.
Eric

[cwl]

i think your opponent may well 3 bet here with some hands that you have a decent number of outs against. if he is bothering to think about it he should be able to figure out that its pretty unlikely for you to have a flush on the turn. almost all the spade broadway cards are on the board. how many hands could you have here with which you have the flush on the turn, AsTs, maybe As9s or Ts9s? also, you would have had to not raise the flop in position with your nut flush draw/gutshot which makes it a bit less likely you have the flush. the most likely K hands for him to have give him 2 pair. i wouldnt be surprised if he didnt 3 bet you with KQ/KJ but i wouldnt be surprised if he did either. against those hands you have 7-9 outs. i think a set will often 3 bet here and you will have 3-4 outs that you had to fold. maybe what you potentially give up is worth the benefits of the raise but i think you are sometimes giving something up when he forces you to fold here.

the hands i can think of him having that he might fold and that you gain significantly when he does fold are:
- something like 88 with a spade.
- JT no spade

are there other hands that there is a decent chance he will fold here? will he have these often enough to make the raise worthwhile? the small pair with a spade is probably not all that likely a hand. i dont think he is very likely to fold a better hand. how often do you think he will fold a K?

the raise also has value if he will check/fold the river with hands that have outs to beat you, like a spade draw, but as you have pointed out in other threads most semi-bluffs will fire again on the river. if a blank comes and he checks the river i would expect him to call a bet should you choose to value bet here so i dont think you lose a bet against a weak made hand.

there are also a few river scenarios in which the turn raise can cost you:
- if a fourth spade comes its possible he would have checked the river with a K type hand so it would only cost you 1 bet to get to showdown.
- if a fourth spade comes would you call the river at all? depending on the answer to this this might be a spot that you save a bet.
- if he calls the raise and bets out on the river in both the spade and non spade cases. this either costs you an extra bet or the showdown.

all in all it doesnt look to me like the benefits of the raise outweigh the negatives in this spot.

[hockey1]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm starting to like the play again after thinking about it more.

[/ QUOTE ]

You shouldn't. This hand is not all that hard. If you're ahead and you raise the turn he'll fold and you'll lose the bet you would've gained by calling the turn and calling his bet on the river (or betting the river for value if checked to and having him call). If you're not ahead, that means your opponent by the turn has a king, flush, or 2 pair/set. Without some player-specific information (none is provided) it's safe to assume none of these is going to fold to your turn raise. So, the raise is unlikely to gain you anything, could lose you a BB if you're ahead AND puts you in a position to get 3-bet -- in which case you either get milked for even more or have to fold while putting in the same number of bets you would have if you just called the turn and the river but without even getting to see the river.

Bad.

Please explain to me why it's more complicated than this and/or why I'm wrong.

[hockey1]

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
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... you raise will never get him to fold a King, any spade, or any pair ...


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This is just silly. However, even if you believe this to be the case, raising is still correct for value.

Good luck.
Eric

[/ QUOTE ]

"Or any pair" may not be right, but other than that the statement is not silly at all. If you think it is then you obviously don't play much Party 15/30. And I'm at a complete loss to divine how you think this can possibly be a value bet without any fold equity and if you assume that lower pairs will fold to the raise.

[Nate tha' Great]

Opponent showed A7 with the ace of spades and MHIG.

I'm a little bit more optimistic about my folding equity than some people here. If he's betting out on the flop with, say, K /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 8 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif, I think he's already getting a little bit worried when I just call on the flop. Gosh, a coordinated, high-card flop, a preflop raiser should like that one, no? Then he bets into me again on the turn on a card that ought to scare the bejeezus out of one of us and I pop him. You think he's going to call with his piddling little king?

Well, yeah, he probably will, since this is Party Poker and all that, but even if he just SOMETIMES folds the best hand, and some other times folds a hand that has more outs against me than it realizes, that is a coup for me. I'm not entirely certain that I even have the odds to *call* two more bets - he bet into three players including a PFR and, let's face it, that's an ugly turn card - but if I can turn that to my advantage and add maybe 10 or 15 percent folding equity (*) to what's left of my showdown equity, then maybe I have a winning play here.

(*) What we should really be looking at here is "net" folding equity, since I am planning on folding to a 3-bet and will sometimes be pushed off a hand that would have won the whole pot. That is, the chance that he folds the winner less the chance that I fold the winner. I suspect that my net folding equity is more like 5 percent here, but that is still pretty significant in a probable 9 BB pot and could potentially turn a fold into a raise.

[mike l.]

there you just did a great job of explaining why you should flat call the turn.

[Louie Landale]

The most you gain is if he folds a stiff K. 2nd is when SB he has draw that he thinks is so weak he'll fold it, like 7s6d. You also gain here is if SB has some sort of draw, say QdTs or Jd9s, that he'll neither bet nor pay off on the river. Then you gain most of a bet.

If SB has such a hand and will bet or check-call the river you break even when you win but lose less when you lose; so long as you are willing to bet the river when he checks. You also lose a lot if you are NOT drawing dead but have to abandon your 8 outs to a turn 3-bet.

And, of course, you are probably beat at this time.

And, of course, your "free showdown" costs the same as if you call and call. I don't think much of these "fee card" plays.

This sort of light raise makes sense when there are others in the pot who almost certainly don't have you beat. You need a good specific reason to do it and I don't see one here.

Such a good reason is if you believe he WILL bet out with a stiff K (too afraid to check-raise the flop) and fold to the turn raise. Gotta know your player.

- Louie