I think my play is pretty standard. What I want to know is how to interpret the villain's play, and if any adjustment is appropriate. The villain is one of the better players on the site, likely winner, quite possibly GTO-aware

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - $0.50/$1 (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 45.21 BB (VPIP: 31.55, PFR: 21.60, 3Bet Preflop: 11.79, Hands: 1,171)
Hero (SB): 123.18 BB

Hero posts SB 0.25 BB, BB posts BB 0.5 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 0.75 BB) Hero has Q Q

fold, fold, CO raises to 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 1.5 BB, fold, CO calls 0.5 BB

Flop: (3.5 BB, 2 players) 4 J 5
Hero bets 0.5 BB, CO calls 0.5 BB

Turn: (4.5 BB, 2 players) J
Hero bets 1 BB, CO raises to 2 BB, Hero calls 1 BB

River: (8.5 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero checks, CO checks

CO shows 4 A (Two Pair, Jacks and Fours)
(Pre 33%, Flop 22%, Turn 11%)
Hero shows Q Q (Two Pair, Queens and Jacks)
(Pre 67%, Flop 78%, Turn 89%)
Hero wins 8.12 BB
Rake paid 0.26 BB

0.12 BB was deducted from the pot for the jackpot.

So how do I interpret that turn raise?

(1) Villain flopped a pair HU IP, and delayed to turn to bet or raise; turn card didn't change who was ahead or behind.

(2) Villain tried a Free Showdown Raise, and got their free showdown.

I would think that in case (1), the villain's raise is arguably for value, and they "should" bet the river for value. (But what worse hand is going to call the turn raise and a river bet? AdXd?)

So it seems to me more likely that this was a classic FSDR.

What is the exploit for a player who occasionally FSDRs, other than to continue to try to play my best and let them value-own themselves from time to time?

Donk the river or 3bet bluff your draw on the turn more .

But if it's occasionally don't sweat about it. You still got paid !

Yes to both of these. I'd also add more value 3-bets on the turn, too. Villain may be prone folding the river to a donk but would be willing to call the 3-bet. It's hard to know until you start poking around to see how he responds to things.

You may feel as though you missed a bet on the river, but you already won that bet on the turn. So at this point, you're really looking for ways to milk extra profit beyond that which is normally coming your way. Just be careful of counter-exploitation. If you suddenly switch to thinking about lines like 3-bet/fold or donk-folding the river, you should revert back to more passive lines that get you to showdown.

I don't feel I missed the river bet. That's implicit in my "play as well as I can and let them value-own themselves from time to time" remark. Villain value-owned themself this time.

The question behind my question is, does a play like this mean I should change how I think about this villain, aside from guessing that maybe they have read WITHG?

No. You should change your perception of how this villain thinks about you.

Elaborate....

Either he doesn't understand why the free showdown raise is bad, or he thinks you're bad enough that he can use the free showdown raise vs you.

For example, I free showdown raise occasionally, or very rarely, when I think certain conditions are met such as these:

high flop and turn cbet frequency

low turn 3 bet frequency

high turn bet fold frequency

low river cbet bluff frequency

all of these conditions play a part in making the free showdown raise correct. Maybe he thinks you fit the bill.

The Villain may have thought they were ahead and were raising for value and/or to push out smaller pocket pairs. Your PF 3! range includes some missed Ax or KQ type hands and the second jack makes it less likely that you paired on the board.

Seeing that you called, they obviously opted for the free showdown, but it may not have been a part of their reasoning when they made the raise.

I dunno what you guys are talking about, the obvious adjustment is to 3-bet the turn and bet the river again. With value hands if he shows down, or bluffs if he starts folding these marginal hands.

The value to calling and donking the river is going to be opponent dependent. I can see some players folding instantly to the 3-bet, but thinking about calling a river donk because "it doesn't make sense."

I think he was going for extremely thin value on a card that hamstrings a lot of your range (IOW you're three betting almost never without at least KJ). Once every draw completed, he took his showdown. It'd be more interesting if he checked a brick river.

@Bob, I doubt villain thinks AB is folding anything better here (and if AB is folding 66 here, then he needs to stop doing that, but I don't think AB is).

I'm pretty sure Alan asked how to adjust to this particular opponent after seeing this particular line, not how to exploit "some players". You should 3-bet the turn the next time this situation comes up, not call/bet. 3! the turn is superior to call/betting because:

- You can get up to 4 bets on the turn/river if you 3! the turn instead of 3.
- There are some river cards that can make it difficult to call/bet (i.e. A, K) or get called by worse.
- You quickly learn if he is raise/folding these marginal hands, and can then continue to exploit him even more by bluffing in future hands. This is way more valuable than getting 1 potential extra bet by call/betting.

I agree. I didn't mean to imply that. "High turn bet fold frequency" is just one piece of the puzzle, which doesn't necessarily need to be satisfied in order to make the thin turn raise correct.

There's a great discussion going on in the theory forum about out of position cbetting frequencies and ranges in no limit holdem. Here's a clip, which I think is relevant:

If this is true, which solvers have shown to be the case, then I think it follows that being punished by frequent raises should make us bet less often when out of position. If we bet too often, then we're exploitable by an oft raising opponent.

Given the read from the op:

I think it's quite likely that this is what's happening.

As long as the intention is to get to showdown, sure.

But I don't see any problem with the bolded. Once you've decided on a plan to try to exploit your opponent, you should just follow-through. You won't know what your opponent will do in response until you try.

That's a completely random comment, especially when OP talked about never folding and I am discussing 3! the turn. No one has said or implied they were ever folding.

Regardless of what the next board card can be or is? That's absurd. There are usually going to be river cards that affect the action, if not what you do, then certainly what your opponent thinks. In this case, I think a river A can change things. He might view that as a good card to continue bluffing or he might shutdown his mediocre value hands because that hits your range.

You don't choose your adjustment based on not knowing how your opponent will react, you choose your adjustment based on what you have seen them do so far and how you think you can best exploit them.

It may feel random, but it's not so far removed from what players start to fret about.

"I 3-bet him because I thought he was going for a FSDR. But he capped. Should I fold now?"

Right. He *might* do all sorts of things. But you don't know what he's going to do. That's why you're probing.

Sure. If you're *already* inside of your opponent's head, then you can play to what you think he's going to do. My point is that if you're probing, then you *don't* know what's in his head yet. If you don't know yet, then the river will be whatever it will be and you will learn whatever you will learn.

In this case, OP understands that villain may FSDR and he's asking, "What can I do?" Simply put, we have no idea how villain is going to react to anything. Maybe that's the last that villain was ever going to put in the pot. Maybe villain is also in showdown mode. Maybe villain would have continued firing except that the flush card fell. There's so much we don't know, and no amount of speculation will change that.

So if you want to find out, you're going to have to try things and see what happens. Or you're going to have to make a lot of observations about what your opponent seems to do (but you may not get that opportunity, depending on how frequently he does it).

I'm okay with the idea that, in the absence of information, you just try something and see how he responds. If I don't know what my opponent is doing, I don't need to create an elaborate plan that just increases the number of branches in the decision tree that will also have no information to work from.

Your strategy posts are making less and less sense. Taking some weird line to "probe" when we already have the information to make the obvious adjustment is pretty terrible. You realize you're essentially saying you want to take some non-optimal line "for information". While you're at it, why don't you raise him "to see where you're at"?

Don't take a less exploitable line because you want to explore his response to some weird line, that's ridiculous. This isn't some 10k hand HU match.

That's actually what I was kind of afraid of and why I've been very insistent that if you start going down this path that you should not fold. That's not what this is about.

If villain FSDRs, you've *already* gotten the bet that you "should have" gotten if villain had just called down. And if he's truly FSDR-ing, then he's folding to your 3-bet because that's what the line is supposed to be doing.

Furthermore, increasing your 3-betting frequency with weaker hands on the turn is exactly the sort of thing that you can do to get yourself in trouble. What happens if villain *isn't* FSDRing? What is he raising the turn with? How does your hand fare against that range?

Most likely, you're in a world of hurt against his value range. And then you "should fold." But then why would you ever open yourself up to this sort of thing by 3-betting the turn? The turn 3-bet opens you up to being exploited because you're giving your opponent a cheap way out when he's behind and a way to extract a lot more value when he's ahead. You're raising to win zero extra bets when you're right but lose as many as 3 extra bets when you're wrong. That's not a good strategy.

So go ahead and 3-bet more often with your semibluffs. That makes sense. You steal pots sometimes that you shouldn't win, and you've probably got the right price to make the bluff. And expand your value range a little bit to balance that out.

But with your marginal showdown hands (I take QQ to be marginal here because of the thinner value-raising range villain should have on that turn card), you're playing a game on a knife's edge. There are no more "optimal" lines to exploit at this point. It's all about capitalizing on your opponent's mistakes. And if you already know what those mistakes are, then use that information. If not, then find out.

I could turn this around and say "Don't play directly into exploitative lines by opening yourself up for an all-risk/no-reward scenario." I don't think the "obvious" adjustment is to start 3-betting marginal showdown hands. That's also ridiculous.

After you've expanded your ranges as described above, you've still got quite a few hands in your range. The standard thing to do is to keep doing what OP did. But if you're looking to exploit (which is what OP suggested he's looking for), I'd look to exploit in the non-standard plays. I'm trying to induce specific types of mistakes based on what I think villain is trying to do.

So if I think villain is FSDRing, I'm not 3-betting the turn because that doesn't exploit that line (he gets away for no more bets). I also don't expect him to bet the river because FSDR isn't about betting the river. So the only place to begin to exploit with these marginal hands is the river donk.

But if you think he's FSDRing but will change his mind and call down with weaker hands, then go ahead and 3-bet your marginal hands for extra value. But I don't think it's "obvious" that this is what you should be doing with those hands.

You realize the pot is laying him 9.5:1 on the 3-bet, so actually folding his 11.3% equity on the turn is a greater mistake than if we call and then bet the river (and he pays off). Even with the .12BB in rake, it's more profitable for us that he folds the turn than pay off the river. If you include him raising the river when he improves, it's even more lopsided.

So, once again you're wrong.

Indeed. I stand corrected.

9.5 * 11.3% = 1.07 BB.

Actually maybe not ..
The villain seem to makes this move occasionally and not always .
That's significantly different.

If he would always do it , well yeah obv better to raise the turn because you know his raising range is to wide and he almost have 0 bluff catcher ...

But if he does it occasionally , if you 3bet here always QQ + you will , more often than not , putting 3bet vs his value raise range .
And it will take at least a couple of hands to realize he simply stop to FSDR the turn when he see you 3betting that wide , costing you a lot of BB .

Much better to 3bet semibluff more than expand your 3beting value hands imo .

And if you 3bet more with semibluff on the turn, what you think gonna happen when you call the turn and donk the river ?
Much better chance he actually will call the river with a "wtf donk is that" thoughts making is FSDR a clear mistake.

I'm getting a bit tired of responding in this thread, but let's point out a few flaws in thinking in this thread:

We don't know when he does FSDR, or when he doesn't. I would guess if AB went through the hand histories and he's halfway decent, he would do it on static boards like this where there are few draws and there is a decent turn scare card so that he thinks he doesn't have to worry about a 3-bet very often (hahaha!).

Obviously we are not 3-betting on bad boards (9-8-7-6, 4 to a flush, A or K overcards, etc.). I'm talking about this type of board with our particular hand.

You guys keep talking about villain as if he is FSDR, but we don't actually know if that's true. Does he really fold getting 9.5:1? I don't know. Does he really not bet a river Ace or a double paired board that counterfeits his 4? I don't know.

AB says he is FSDR, but you can't assume this based on this hand example, and honestly I'm not sure AB is sophisticated enough to understand when he is or is not FSDR or semi-bluffing or whatever. He may be value-raising turns with not partiularly strong hands, but stuff that should be ahead of AB's range, and then shutting down on bad river cards. This particular river completes some draws and puts up another broadway overcard to his pair. If the river is a J, he may value-bet it, I don't know.

I'm speaking in generalities that if the same type of situation comes up again, we should adjust by 3! our stronger hands. If he is raising any pair on this particular board, QQ is pretty strong. If you want to start 3-bet bluffing more, that's fine. If he's raise-folding his whole weak range, then obviously we should 3-bet everything (including pure bluffs).

In general, I'm assuming villains are not folding getting 9.5:1 in a big pot, but I could be wrong. We should be able to soon find out quickly what happens when we 3-bet (either he folds or calls-calls, or calls-folds), which is way more valuable than calling and then donking the river.

Honestly, I'm pretty much done explaining this hand. If you guys want to react when you run into these guys by call-donking, go ahead, be my guest. That's just swell, it really doesn't matter to me.

This is a good post.

I really don't understand why we're assuming this villain is FSDR'ing. This is a spot where he can raise for thin value. Then when the river completes flushes and 76, he can't expect AB to call with his A hi hands, so he checks.

If he makes raises like this frequently, we can start three betting the turn more.

The way I saw it and question was :how to exploit a FSDR ?
I don't see what you gain by 3betting wider your value range?
You will always gets called by better ( because if you 3bet he will folds his FSDR) and so you wont win much beside gaining what ?
Some super slim equity
%, like 2-4.% ( if you are right his hand was a FSDR)by him making fold is 5 outers .

While if you 3bet more semi bluff , you will gain a lot more money by him folding wrongly ( his folding the best hand).
It s a major coup imo.

I felt it was more of a general question and I thought that if I had to chose 1 part of my range I would need to adjust first, it wouldn't be expanding my value range but I would extent my semibluff 3bet range (obv. Up to a certain point where I would need to expand my value range for not being too imbalance).

Guess we play differently and it's fine .
Was just a general response.
I just thought it was the right thing to do but I might be wrong.

And when you say because maybe he was raising more for thin value , why we would assume he does raise less than a J here ?
Because he makes some FSDR ?
I wouldn't expect it necessarily .

Assuming he's raising hands like this to fold is just that: an assumption. He may have some serious meta reasons to play this hand high variance (raise and call a 3 bet, thinking AB is never 3 betting turn without at least like QJ, and that's probably how I'd play a generic low stakes opponent / live opponent on this turn). If that's his gameplan, we gain a ton by 3 betting him thinly for value.

Of course, I have no idea what his gameplan was. Maybe he is an FSDR monkey and we could've soul owned him by three betting some K hi FD. But his hand was quite a reasonable check on that river.