Justification for Loose Calls

[NYCNative]

Villain makes a lead bet on a flop where a call is -EV. When, if ever, do you make a loose call? I see several possible scenarios where you can do this:

1) You have enough chips where a loose call that doesn't hit won't hurt very much but if it hits, you will get paid off and/or knock villain out.

2) You feel that you can bluff and take the pot down even if you miss on the turn. (For example, you are drawing to a straight but a flush scare card hits.)

3) You are against a villain who will not fold that TP no matter what unless he is scared on the turn so a raise will not get villain to fold but a call followed by a scare card will. (I see a lot of such players at the lower levels.)

4) The draw is so juicy that you feel you have a good enough shot to hit it but that you can get paid off more when you do hit it than by raising here.

5) You feel villain will be scared by a smooth call enough that your chance of getting a free card on the river if the turn misses will be high.

Anything else? Or do all of these suck?

[45suited]

How about in a relatively small pot, villain leads out from the blinds with what appears to be an auto-bet on a paired flop? You don't feel like getting so attached to the hand to put in a bluff raise, but you'd like to send the message that you are not automatically giving up these kinds of flops in the future so that he has to think twice about always leading at them.

[kyro]

You basically just detailed implied odds in two of your scenarios, so those really don't count.

And I've experimented with a -EV smoothcall in order to steal the pot on the turn. It is a very very bad idea.

[NYCNative]

Okay, one for Table Image then. I happen to think Table Image as a whole is not a huge issue at a SNG but within a single game such a play could help future hands.

[jcm4ccc]

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1) You have enough chips where a loose call that doesn't hit won't hurt very much but if it hits, you will get paid off and/or knock villain out.

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Implied odds. Generally overrated to justify poor pot odds. Flush draws should have almost no implied odds. A straight draw might have implied odds, if the straight is not apparent from the board.

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2) You feel that you can bluff and take the pot down even if you miss on the turn. (For example, you are drawing to a straight but a flush scare card hits.)

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In that instance, you are drawing to a straight. If you have the odds to do that, fine. If you don't, your odds don't improve because you think that on the flop you will make a bluff bet on the turn if a scare card hits. You may decide to do that on the turn, but that shouldn't influence your thinking on the flop.

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3) You are against a villain who will not fold that TP no matter what unless he is scared on the turn so a raise will not get villain to fold but a call followed by a scare card will. (I see a lot of such players at the lower levels.)

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So you're going to draw to an imaginary flush and bet if the flush card hits. What if the flush card doesn't hit? I would stick with drawing to real flushes, if you have the odds to call.

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4) The draw is so juicy that you feel you have a good enough shot to hit it but that you can get paid off more when you do hit it than by raising here.

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OK

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5) You feel villain will be scared by a smooth call enough that your chance of getting a free card on the river if the turn misses will be high.

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So you don't have the odds to call the flop bet for one more card, but you do have the odds to call the flop bet for two more cards. Basic mistake.