Free Showdown

[WillyT]

Eric,

Raising for a free showdown can involve charging a draw more obviously. It's just that it's rare for a player to give up on the river these days if they've c/r'd a draw on the flop. If your opponent is going to bet the river with a frequency greater than 1 minus the frequency he gets there it's better to let him hang himself.

IMO, the essential element I look for when making a rare free showdown raise is when my opponent can fold a hand which would want to (at least) call my turn raise if he could see my hand. Getting a better hand to fold is a subset this property. Of course this is obvious. We're always looking to make our opponents make mistakes so we first have to figure out what mistakes he could make at a given point. Fortunately there are only 8 mistakes to be on the look out for exploiting.

Cheers,

Bill

[elindauer]

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IMO, the essential element I look for when making a rare free showdown raise is when my opponent can fold a hand which would want to (at least) call my turn raise if he could see my hand. Getting a better hand to fold is a subset this property.

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Very well said. Now I think we are dialing on the merits of a free showdown raise.

Note though, that again in this regard, this hand falls short. Getting A7 to fold 1 time in 20 is not enough to justify the risk. There are much better spots.

-eric

[elindauer]

James writes that some of the things you should look for in a good free showdown raise spot include:

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*you don't need to call a 3bet
*you have little chance of improving if behind

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However, I think these guidelines are misguided. For example, you can often make free showdown raises with pair + draw hands, where you are semibluffing with outs, then giving up on the river if your opponent calls and you miss your draw. This is best used when the completion of your draw will be very scary, so that your opponent may be inclined to just check-call instead of bet-calling when it hits. Draws to 4-flush or 4-straight are prime examples.

Here's my list of considerations for free showdowns:

- how often will I fold a better hand?
- how often will I fold a hand with outs? How many outs?
- how often will I get outplayed and cost myself the pot?
- how expensive is it to raise and fail to get a fold?

Getting better hands to fold is obviously by far the most valuable, so you focus your attention there. Getting hands with outs to fold has some value, but you don't take much risk of losing the pot to get that. It's more like icing on the cake typically. Evaluating the cost of failing takes into consideration both your equity in the pot when called and how often you get 3-bet.

Here's are a couple examples where free showdown raises may be appropriate, but you have to call if 3-bet:


You raise 8c7c from the button. A reasonably straight-forward small-stakes TAG 3-bets from the big blind.

Flop: 9c 8h 4d. He bets, you call.
Turn: 5c. He bets, you make a free showdown raise.

If you follow the rules put forth by others, you can't raise here. However, it's actually an excellent spot to raise, because you can fold overcards, are planning to call the river anyways, and have great equity in the pot when called. It will be hard, though of course not impossible, for him to 3-bet an overpair. If he does, it sucks, but it's hardly the end of the world as you have excellent equity in this pot.

So you raise hoping your hand is best, but ensuring that 3-bets go in against overpairs when you catch those scary rivers like the 6 and ace of clubs.

-eric

[Harv72b]

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- how often will I fold a better hand?
- how often will I fold a hand with outs? How many outs?
- how often will I get outplayed and cost myself the pot?
- how expensive is it to raise and fail to get a fold?

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You're missing an important consideration: how often will my turn raise get called by worse hands which would likely check/fold the river UI if I flat call? I.e, draws. Unless of course your read on the villain is that he'll fire another bluff on the river when he misses.

I'm not a big fan of the free showdown raise period, but I don't think this is a terrible spot to try it.

Incidentally, your two examples (draws to a 4-flush or 4-straight) are pretty bad because in those instances you usually have to call a 3bet when it comes. One of the key elements of the FSDR is that we use the play with the knowledge that those will be the last 2 bets we put into the pot unimproved.

I think a good example would be if we openraised OTB with AK and an aggressive (but not maniacal) opponent called us from the BB. The flop comes something like T92 two-suited & we get check/raised. Turn is an offsuit 4. Here, the nature of the board makes for plenty of draws which have to call our turn raise, and our line (apparently waiting for a safe turn card to raise) makes it relatively likely that a slightly better hand may fold (a deuce, small pocket pair, etc.).

[elindauer]

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Incidentally, your two examples (draws to a 4-flush or 4-straight) are pretty bad because in those instances you usually have to call a 3bet when it comes. One of the key elements of the FSDR is that we use the play with the knowledge that those will be the last 2 bets we put into the pot unimproved.


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lol. Did you read my post? It was all about how you can, contrary to popular opinion, make free showdown raises with hands that must call a 3-bet, along with an example and explanation.

I give up on this thread. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

-eric

[Jake (The Snake)]

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I give up on this thread. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

-eric

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Haha, this seems to happen pretty often in threads about the FSD.

[James.]

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I give up on this thread. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

-eric

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Haha, this seems to happen pretty often in threads about the FSD.

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no doubt! it's almost comical the way everyone chimes in with all of these ancillary arguments.

fwiw, with all due respect to eric and the rest of us, i think the problem lies less with the difference in strategy and more with the difference in terminology.

as a 2p2er, we've been taught certain mantras. now as a result of this there is certain language that means certain things. our definition of FSDR has the specific inclusion of the characteristic that calling a 3bet is a strong deterrent against evaluating a spot to use the play. this is why we repeatedly bring it up when determining the merits of the play. eric refers to the play in a more universal sense(which is fine if you understand what he is saying) and therefore can be referring to something specifically different in contrast to this particular point in terms of the typical "2p2 doctrine". that's fine, and i think it's great that he's thinking outside of certain paradigms. it has made me think about the play in broader application and that's a good thing. what it boils down to though, is that i generally dislike the play. but all i really wanted to do is explain to some of the newer posters what some of the "standard" requirements could be in terms of evaluating the situation for application of the free showdown(and this is obviously in accord with what i've always learned in the forums about what the FSDR involved). hope everyone understands.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

I tend to focus on player reads and exploiting tendencies, so one thing I would like to discuss is what kinds of players it makes sense to try a free showdown play against. Since the free showdown is intended to put in more money on an earlier street with the hope of not having to put in any more money in on the hand, then you want to avoid players who will try to make you put in another bet, such as those who will three-bet the turn lightly or who may call the turn raise and lead out again on the river unimproved, whether as a bluff or as a value bet. You also don't want to use this play against a habitual bluffer because you are tossing your hand's bluff-catching value out the window and turning your hand into a bluff.

It feels like the purpose of a free showdown raise is to get a value bet in on the turn because you will have a hard time getting it in on the river. This usually occurs when there are a lot of scare cards that can come (usually, with a drawy board). Also, because the board is drawy, you are raising to prevent a river bluff.

So, I probably disagree with James that the purpose is partly to get better hands to fold. I think the purpose is to get a worse hand to call (you are, after all, betting based on plans to go to showdown), so I do not make a free showdown raise unless I think it is unlikely that my opponent will fold.

[elindauer]

thanks James.