Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by Oink (Micro/Small Stakes)

Oink, I like your style and your game
and your videos and the way you verbalize your thoughts.
And I dont feel so bad about playing tight at 2/4 now,
even though I am wanting badly to play a LagTag style.

I love your discription on the russian guys play on one hand...
"ABSOLUTELY RETARDED"....lol...I gonna steal that one.

Good video Oink. It seems like the free showdown raise is a popular play among the TAGs.

You mentioned how the play really only makes sense if he thinks you will never 3-bet bluff him there. That's true, but I still think it's unnecessary in todays games even if you will never 3-bet bluff him because the real value of the free showdown raise is to make a guy pay the most with his draw because you feel that he won't bet again on the river. That just isn't true most of the time. So, you need these conditions for a free showdown raise:

1) You can fold to a 3-bet.
2) You might get a better hand to fold.
3) If he's on a draw he won't bluff bet the river that often.

There aren't many spots in today's games where these conditions hold. In the hand where the TAG had AKo, none of these were true. With his A high flush draw the free showdown/semi-bluff he was trying really made no sense. But, even if you assume he didn't have the draw and that you would never 3-bet bluff him there, it still really isn't an optimal play if you think about the likely scenarios:

1) You have 2-pair or better. Now he just gets 3-bet. He can probably fold if all he has is overcards, but maybe he won't because now he'll change his mind and think "well, I have a showdown worthy hand and he could be bluffing." That costs him 2BB more if he is going to showdown.

2) You have a draw and miss on the river. He makes the same as if he just called down because if you get to the river, and miss your draw, you are likely to fire another bluff because of the pot size. He also avoids getting 3-bet semi-bluffed on the turn.

3) You have a draw and the river completes the obvious draw. Now he can fold and save 1BB.

Also, in this scenario he never gets you to fold a better hand so that aspect is gone as well.

This is related to a general mistake that a lot of TAGs make. That is, they raise with bluff catching hands. That is a product of them not thinking about your range and the actions that will result from their raise (and the purpose of raising in poker in general).

Abs

Thanks for the comment

I agree completely. when mking the video in real time you dont always remeber everything and as your post suggest the free showdaown play is a rather complex matter to really analyse.

I would like to comment on your 2). I think this should be changed to "better hand or a hand with a lot of outs". we often talk about free SD raising underpairs on paired boards which I think is often a great play in either 3-bet pots or pots that were c/r'ed on the flop or pots that were 3+ way at one point.

You're right. It should say "You might get a hand to incorrectly fold." That's what I meant.

This is in regards to the last hand you went over in Poker Tracker where you finally decided that folding is probably the right play on the river. You had 6d4d.. and the board was 5c7h8c2c6c.

You describe him as an ABC type Tag, however, his donk into two players on the flop would certainly not be an ABC type play. Are you making this analysis to fold based upon playing against what you think is an ABC type player? If he is capable of donking with Q9 on the flop here, then he is probably capable of donking the river as a bluff or thin value bet.

I see players sometimes donk a rivered two pair here thinking they just pulled ahead but are afraid to CR.

I agree you are mostly behind here, but I think you were getting the right price to call.