When to raise for a free showdown

[cartman]

I am pretty clueless about when to raise for a free showdown. Can anyone enlighten me? Any input regarding the appropriate combination of conditions, opponent type, board texture, our hand, or any other relevant factor would be greatly appreciated. Conceptual explanation and/or examples would be wonderful.

Thanks,
Cartman

[Lmn55d]

I'll give it a shot. There are a couple factors that determine the effectiveness of a free showdown raise. The most important, IMO, is how often your opponent will fold a better hand. This is what gives the move its power. Here's an example:

You open from the CO with 9Ts and are called by a fairly weak-tight BB. Flop comes QT6 with a flush draw. You bet and are checkraised. You call. Turn is 4. BB leads and you raise, intending to take a free showdown.

Against a player who could fold TJ, TK, AT or a weak queen, this is one hell of a move. Furthermore, you could still have the best hand because he could be on a draw or have a pair of sixes or something.

There are a couple more important factors:

2) how frequently will your opponent 3bet you with a worse hand. There are a lot of aggressive players who love to semibluff or bluff 3bet, or simply 3bet a weaker made hand because they like it. Against these players, the free showdown raise loses a ton of value (also these types of players tend not to fold a better hand than yours, which goes along with #1). When you make a free showdown raise, you are intending to fold to a 3bet usually. Sometimes you are folding a hand that is best or has a lot more outs than you think. If either of these is likely to be the case, the FSR loses a lot of value.

3) How often will your opponent bluff the river with a missed draw or otherwise weak hand. If your opponent will bluff the river 100% of the time, you'd rather him do this with 0% equity than charge him on the turn when he has equity and might 3bet with a worse hand or simply fold to your raise. MarkD and I did some calculations in an older post about the value of folding a 5-6 outer. This is often overrated. THe pot would have to be pretty big to make this have more value than inducing a river bluff from a frequent bluffer. Some guys will be bluffing a hand that is drawing dead or very slim against yours and would fold to a turn raise, but would bluff the river if you just call the turn. In this spot you obviously want to keep your opponent in. Against an opponent who never bluffs and who will often have a draw, the FSR gains a lot of value.

Like I said in another post, the types of player that the FSR is useful against aren't too common at 5/10, 10/20 etc. Semibluff and bluff raises are so common that nobody folds, even solid playing TAGs. There are some players/situations where it is a very powerful move though. Particularly if a player respects your play. Also, if the turn introduces a new draw, you will lose a lot of folding equity because people will put you on a semibluff a lot.

[surfdoc]

very nice post.

[Jeff W]

[ QUOTE ]
There are a couple factors that determine the effectiveness of a free showdown raise. The most important, IMO, is how often your opponent will fold a better hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good post, but note that it is not necessary that a free showdown raise have fold equity to be +EV. Even if you only cause worse hands to fold, a free showdown raise will often be correct.

Your other two points are good. A couple other obvious factors that justify a free showdown raise: 1) Your hand is good often enough relative to the pot size that putting 2 bets in justified. 2) Your hand isn't strong enough that you want 3 bets to go in on turn and river.

[Schizo]

[ QUOTE ]

Your other two points are good. A couple other obvious factors that justify a free showdown raise: 1) Your hand is good often enough relative to the pot size that putting 2 bets in justified. 2) Your hand isn't strong enough that you want 3 bets to go in on turn and river.

[/ QUOTE ]

3) avoiding a river checkraise from a very drawy board.

[Schizo]

[ QUOTE ]
MarkD and I did some calculations in an older post about the value of folding a 5-6 outer. This is often overrated. THe pot would have to be pretty big to make this have more value than inducing a river bluff from a frequent bluffer.

[/ QUOTE ]

You wouldn't by any chance happen to have a link to this post would you?

[Lmn55d]

just found it. It's from about 3 months ago and there's probably been better discussions elsewhere. The dialogue between MarkD, Guy McSucker and myself is what you want to look at.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...3514&page=

[cartman]

Thanks for the excellent response. You are right that folding 5-6 outers is very overrated if there is much chance at all they will bluff the river unimproved. I also agree with your assessment that the typical opponent will virtually never fold immediately to the turn raise with any pair and very rarely with even Ace high or two overcards. That means, since we have showdown value, raising for a free showdown will essentially never make the typical opponent fold a better hand.

Bobbyi and Jeff W make some good arguments that we don't need any chance of folding a better hand to make raising for the free showdown correct, but I don't fully understand what other conditions would have to be present for this to be the case. It would seem to me that without any folding equity, two conditions would have to be present to make this a good idea:

1) There is a pretty reasonable chance that our hand is best
2) He is very likely to check hands that are worse than ours on the river and bet hands that are better

But the problem I have with it is that we are essentially seeing to it that 2 total turn/river bets go in regardless of whether we are ahead or behind. (Of course sometimes we will improve and get to put in a 3rd bet, but we will also sometimes get 3-bet on the turn and fold a hand that would have improved and won the pot, but let's ignore those for a second.) So 2 bets all the time is clearly better than 2 when he likes his hand and 1 when he doesn't. But we have the option to bet if he checks the river! So we can see to it that 2 bets go in if we want assuming that he will call when he checks the river, which may be an incorrect assumption. But the times he check-folds the river with a worse hand will be somewhat offset by the times that he bluffs the river with a worse hand or checks with a better one and we decide not to value bet.

Basically it seems like that without folding equity, we would be better off spending one big bet on the turn and having the option to spend another one on the river if we are checked to rather than spending a sure two on the turn. It seems to me that if our hand is strong enough to want a sure two to go in on the turn then it would be strong enough to want to bet the river unimproved--at least some of the time--which means it isn't a free showdown raise after all.

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks,
Cartman

[thejameser]

i guess fold equity is important, but that is usually the case with any bet; that is if we could win it right there in a marginal situation that is usually what we would like to do. the key to the free showdown is that you opponent is likely on a draw. he will pay 2 bb's on the turn but not on the river unless he likely has a better hand(you have a marginal hand in this situation). that way you make the most when ahead, given that unless he is just bluffing he will not bet or call the river on a busted draw(which is the key). also, i like to think when you get your money in with cards to come, you are getting it in with "suck out" equity(that is you could improve to trips, etc.)which can make you more of a favorite or stronger at showdown. i'm forgetting something but hope that helps a little bit.

[kapw7]

My thought: It's not really a "free showdown". It can be even more expensive if you get bet on the river. So it is nothing more than a semi-bluff turn raise. I think it's effective when you charge a hand that you suspect is on a draw or generally when you think your hand can win at SD but you can charge 1 more bet and you have the extra value of folding equity or making a hand as in any semi-bluff.