I need help on the concept of overcalling

[Noodles]

When you start off playing most advise is to be aggressive,so then when I saw posts where people advise to just call this down,I got confused /images/graemlins/tongue.gif
Like arent we supposed to be aggressive,I think I may have a handle on this now but help me out.
I thik you overcall when there are 1 or 2 people behind you that you think you have a better hand than but if you raise they will fold and you lose 2 bets. Also you are not sure if you are better than the bettor so it is better to call as there is a chance he will reraise,then by rasing you lose the 2 after you and have to call another bet from the bettor.
anyone got some good essays or links about this concept.and how do you know when to apply it properly?

[sthief09]

calling down, for the most part, is not a good idea unless you're headsup. headsup, raising only increases the pot size. in a multiway pot, making people fold increases your chances of winning.

in order to overcall on the river, you usually have to have a pretty damn good hand, unless one of the callers is a calling station

[Kenshin]

Alas, I have neither links nor essays for you. You already possess a decent understanding of the concept, though. Assume you have the nut straight on the river. 4 players with you in second position. If player 1 bets and you raise, players 3 and 4 will most likely fold. Therefore you will collect 2 bets instead of 3. Thus, the overcall becomes correct.
Of course, you have to know that your opponents will fold to the raise. Thus, this play is appropriate on a board without many strong second best hands.

Kenshin

[balkii]

Kenshin, I dont like just calling the river with the nuts.

Your line should be applied to situations where you have a strong hand that isn't the nuts, and would prefer to get single bets from more players, rather than multiple bets from 1 player, who might be ahead of you.

With the nuts, on the river, you just have to raise and hope they want to call 2 cold, or raise. I dont slowplay the nuts on the river.

[Lori]

It is difficult to tell whether you are on about overcalling yourself, or getting others to overcall.

1) Overcalling yourself.

You need a slightly better hand than you normally would to overcall with.

If you have a hand you would normally just call with on the river, you need to realise that someone calling before you will have a similar hand, so you need a slightly stronger one than just a normal call.
This hardly applies in low limit play online as so many people call with utter garbage.
It is however a principle you need to understand.

2) Inducing Overcalls is very situation specific, and I agree that you should usually raise, however, let's try this one.

The board is QQ473, no flush, and you hold QQ, there is a bet to you and five people behind you.
The trouble with a raise here is that even the initial bettor might not have sufficient to call you with as you know he doesn't have a Queen.
However, just calling might encourage others with 99, A7 and the suchlike to take a shot by thinking they are going to win.
In this kind of scenario you are hoping to get the extra bet by gaining an additional caller as you think it more likely than the original bettor calling a raise. (You may even get someone to raise you).
Each one should be judged on it's merits and you also need to factor in the bettor three betting you with a small boat.

However, these are the concepts, it's up to you how you apply them /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Lori