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