Difficult to reconcile contradiction in stox/zobags

[bbbushu]

2p2,

I realize that hold 'em is a game of balance that sometimes requires contradictory ideas to be weighed and so on but i'm not sure the explanation exists to seperate these two passages in Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games

[ QUOTE ]
If you have a marginal hand and an aggressive opponent check raises [the flop] you should generally call down. You could potentially raise the turn for a free showdown. However, if your opponent may three-bet the turn as a bluff or semi-bluff, you should not raise for a free showdown since you may have to lay down the best hand in a fairly large pot. You should also be less inclined to make the free showdown raise on a coordinated board because it is far more likely your opponent could three-bet and you can't fold since it might be a semi-bluff.

[/ QUOTE ] p. 151

[ QUOTE ]
With a marginal made hand against an aggressive opponent who will bet the turn as a bluff or semi-bluff, you want to get to the showdown because of the good pot odds. However, it is usually better to raise the turn with the intention of checking the river because it costs the same number of bets as calling down but does more to protect your hand. When the board is coordinated, you should be even more inclined to raise for two reasons. First, it is more likely that your hand is good since your opponent could be semi-bluffing. Second, when your opponent is behind, he will have more outs on average, which increases the value of protecting your hand.

[/ QUOTE ] p. 181

Few things:

Do the authors think one of the two warrants (having to call down because villain may be semi-bluffing OR villain could have more outs more often) outweighs the other? (It also seems like the argument "villain could be semi-bluffing" is used to justify both to me.)

Hero is on the button both times - the only difference i see is that in the first situation, the action would go:

[rc; kbrc; b...]

whereas in the second, it would more likely go:

[r3c; bc; b...]

so... is there an unexplained reason why we should be more inclined to raise for free showdown after getting three-bet pre-flop than we would having been check/raised on the flop? i generally feel the opposite but that could be wrongheaded. if that's the difference i don't see it anywhere.

comments appreciated, i'm not trying to be that guy who criticizes - i [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] your books and trust in them - but this confuses me

bbbushu

[steamboatin]

I didn't see anything your example about three betting preflop, but my reading comprehension isn't very good.

My take was don't raise the turn if the villian is capable of three betting on a bluff.

[bbbushu]

steam,

they don't really describe what the action would be in the second passage (taken from the chapter about the free showdown raise) but villain is definitely in the lead on the turn so i assumed we got three-bet pre-flop because that would make the situations different (on the first, we raised preflop, got check/raised after continuation betting and THEN contemplated the FSDR).

is the idea just that villain could have been semi-bluffing on the flop (and now is on the turn)? - if that's true and it's just a flop check/raise, then maybe it's just an organization problem that looks like a contradiction. if villain three-bet pre-flop, though, the coordinated nature of the board might not matter that much if the turn bet is just another continuation-bet.

make sense?

[uDevil]

I agree with steam. It seems to me the key difference is whether or not villain is capable of raising the turn as a bluff or semibluff that would force you to fold the best hand. You want to avoid that situation.

So my interpretation is that in the first example villain is likely to 3-bet as a bluff/semibluff, so you shouldn't give him the opportunity. In the second example villain would not be likely to 3-bet as a bluff or semibluff. So now it's better to raise because if he does 3-bet, you can safely fold.

[stoxtrader]

example 1 - your opponent is aggressive so you want to get to showdown, in fact, he is so aggressive, that he is capable of three bet semibluffing the turn (even most aggressive opponents DONT make this play). This really hurts your free showdown raise because you are put in the position of deciding whether to possibly fold the best hand or payoff. Thus don't free showdown raise against an opponent capable/likely of 3 bet semi/bluffing the turn with a draw.

example two - this would serve as your default play against most players and most opponents because I would make the assumption that you can safely fold to a turn three bet on a coordinated board because *most* villains with a draw would just call a turn raise and see if they hit and can get a raise in on the river.

please note that I would certainly own up to mistakes we have made in the text, and they are definitely there, but I think both passages stand without need of correction. The key difference being the tendency of villain to 3BET semibluff.

[bbbushu]

cool, thanks. i guess i knew that villain's ability to three-bet semi-bluff was the difference but i thought that was a sub-category of the "aggressive" read and thus why you advocate a call-down in example 1.

bbbushu