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I guess the reason we say call because the pot is big is because very rarely can we be so sure of our "reads" online, a 4% difference is very difficult to really identify. Given the very random nature of many peoples play makes it difficult to accurately pick a number that really is our pot odds for calling on the river, and Ed and Sklansky's idea is that generally for this reason it's better to call than fold because it's more often correct (which I think we know it is). Also for metagame reasons that I think are difficult to quantify many people have built a game around not folding much on the river.

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I agree with this, and that Ed Miller's idea of calling "because the pot is big" is a pretty good reason. Obviously there are times where a fold is easy. But looking at the chart, its very very hard to calculate with certainty your exact chances of winning the pot to make the correct +EV decision. Since it will often be close, it is always better to err on the side of calling. This is because if opponents see you folding many rivers, it encourages them to bluff at you when for example they missed a draw they have been playing stronly. The increased chances of your opponents bluffing makes it even harder to calculate your exact winning %, which causes us to make even more mistakes.

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IMO this is more of an argument for a showdown-oriented game than for not folding on the river... I think players here(and everywhere!) pay off river raises far too lightly for "metagame" reasons, when pure bluff-raises or bluff-3bets on the river are in actuality quite rare... and writing it off to "metagame" is not a good excuse for lax hand-reading and proper estimation of the %age that we are behind given the aciton + the board.

Surf