The Delayed River Raise

[W. Deranged]

In a hand discussion, I read the following statement, which got me thinking about one of my favorite plays:

It's almost never correct to just call the turn and raise the river.

While this is by and large totally correct, there is a specific and very powerful situation in which it can be correct to hold off on raising until the river. (In the hand in question, the Delayed River Raise would have been incorrect in my opinion.)

The main purpose of this play is a critical one that comes into play in higher limits, as games get more aggressive, namely the concept of bet control.

The Delayed River Raise is a powerful tool that can be used in situations where you have a strong hand, but one that could be at risk of paying off heavily to a stronger hand, and where you are looking to maximize value while minimizing risk. The basic idea is that you want to put your opponent in a position where they will put in exactly 2-3 bets, but where you don't risk losing any more than 3 bets. You call the turn and raise the river in order to avoid having to call down four bets, to assure that your opponent has to face a raise at some point, and to allow your opponent to keep betting a marginal made hand on the river. An added advantage of the play is that, by playing your hand aggressively on the river instead of the turn, you can find a far more comfortable fold if three-bet on the river than on the turn, as opponents are much less likely to bluff or semi-bluff the river than the turn.

The key conditions for the Delayed River Raise are:

1. You are heads-up (or possibly three-handed, with a very good notion of exactly what one of the other players has), and are in position.

2. You have a hand that is the likely winner, but is not a monster (55-75% equity usually).

3. Your hand is not hugely vulnerable to draws coming on the river (or, similarly, it is very unlikely your opponent is aggressively playing a draw).

4. You are against an opponent who is relatively aggressive, likely has a decent made hand, and will almost certainly bet the river.

5. Your opponent is capable of folding a decent hand.

6. You would not be comfortable folding your hand without getting to a showdown, particularly on the turn. Alternately, we are in a situation where we’d have to call a turn three-bet because we have picked up backdoor outs.



An example (assume we are 8 handed):

Hero is CO with A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].

Reads:

SB is a weak player, say 35/7/1. He calls far too frequently out of the blinds and often calls the flop but folds the turn with weak holdings.

BB is a strong 2+2er, who you have played with before and you know is capable of taking deceptive lines, particularly against you.

Pre-flop: four folds, Hero raises, Button folds, SB calls, BB calls.

Flop (3 players, 6 sb): J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

SB checks, BB bets, Hero calls, SB folds.

Turn (2 players, 4 bb): Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

SB bets…


I argue that a Delayed River Raise is a strong play here. Thinking about the above conditions:

1. We are heads-up and in position.

2. Our hand is very likely to be the winner, but there is reason to believe we will be behind some meaningful percentage of the time. While we are ahead here most of the time certainly, our opponent is known to be tricky, and, considering that he would have expected us to bet this flop most of the time, his flop bet should raise red flags. The SB’s presence makes the flop bet very unlikely to be a pure bluff, and so our opponent is betting here with a J, 6, or medium pair almost all the time. Considering he didn’t three-bet pre-flop, we can eliminate some of the one pair hands. We also might think our opponent would take the odd flop-donk line as a way to generate action on a 6. So, while we’re going to be ahead here most of the time, we have reason to be cautious. QJ is also a very reasonable holding for villain at this point, which should also be noted.

3. There were basically no draws on the flop, and, as noted, we have reason to believe our villain did not simply stab at the flop with nothing. Our opponent will almost never have more than 2-3 outs (a set out or a K).

4. As we discussed in #2, we can put our opponent on a relatively narrow range of hands, which contains almost all made hands. Our opponent is aggressive, and we can expect him to follow through on the turn with bets for good Js as well as hands like 77, particularly as many of those hands fall into the category of hands where betting is far better than checking out of position on the river, even if they are slightly more likely to be behind than ahead. Our lack of previous aggression will likely inspire our opponent to continue to bet with a lot of pairs.

5. A turn raise will likely fold out hands like 55, and possibly some weaker Js.

6. Considering we opened in the CO, our opponent is aggressive and has a history with us, and our hand is quite strong, not seeing a showdown on this hand would be a very dangerous proposition. Even if three-bet on the turn, we would be very hesitant to fold at that point.


So, when considering all these things, a Delayed River Raise may seem the best way to assure our opponent gets in 2-3 bets here. While our opponent is good enough that he may fold to the river raise, we have made sure he got in 2, and not opened up the risk of putting in 4 (we happily fold to a river three-bet). Our odd line may encourage a crying call on the end from our opponent, but will likely freeze him from going crazy with a weaker hand.


Just some food for thought.
Will