Re: Cold Calling
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In limit poker, cold calling probably causes people to lose more money than any other single mistake. It's not just the 2 SB that you put into the pot when cold calling a raise, its the extra bets on later streets you lose when you hit a very good SECOND best hand.
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Don't get me wrong, i very rareley cold call, but I strongly disagree with this comment pertaining to this arguement. People seem to think that there preflop play is the most important aspect of there game and that couldn't be further from the truth. With bad starting requirements you will lose, but good players realize not to play bad hands and to stay out of the pot when it is likely that you are dominated. When I first went pro I was much more passive on the flop but still managed to turn a hefty profit. I've actually experimented with several playing styles and they all turn a profit, this is because I have the ability to play the flop and later betting rounds well. If you are cold calling with bad or dominated hands this very well could be the worst leak, but this topic isn't about cold calling with dominated hands, it's about how to play your premium and other profitable hands against a raise.
I'm talking about limit, in NL you will cold call a lot more often and use your posistion. In NL you are trying to break people, and this is often done by catching a str8, a set, or an unlikely hand to beat a big pair. Also in posistion you can cold call with almost any hand if your against a real predictable player who raises 2bets with AK but 4bets with AA. If I know he has AK and I have posistion, my cards are pretty irrelevant because I'm taking the pot from him on the flop when he misses his pair 66% of the time.
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