Cold Calling

[Sheriff Fatman]

I've been using Poker Tracker for 2 or 3 months now and have now amassed a sample of just over 12,000 hands (I work full-time so poker is a hobby rather than a profession). I'm making a steady if unspectacular 2.09BB per 100 hands overall so am comfortable that I'm a winning player and have read most of the major books at least once. I'm now trying to build bankroll to move up limits whilst trying to further my understanding of the game.

One area of my game I've been working on is to eliminate as far as possible my pre-flop cold calls. I'm now reviewing this area and would appreciate some thoughts on this.

None of the discussions re Poker Tracker stats I've seen seem to look at this area, but its an area that comes in for much criticism in individual hand reviews.

In 12,119 hands I've made pre-flop cold calls on 40 occasions. Gut feel tells me that this is a low figure compared to the average player but perhaps not when compared to the 2+2 population. These have generally been in situations where I'm in late position and the pot has been raised early. The two most frequent holdings where I do this (7 times each) are AKo (if its suited I'd be raising) and TT (which, for me, is a difficult hand to play). All of the other instances have been with large suited connectors, medium pocket pairs or a suited Ace and were dependent on the actual game at the time. Suited hands were played where a big pot looks to be developing, whilst the pairs were generally situations where the pot was likely to be heads up or 3 handed post flop.

My question now is where do I stand? Does anyone else look at this area? If so, how does my play compare? Is there an optimum level? (OK, I have many questions!)

My instinct tells me my figures are low in terms of frequency of cold calls. In borderline situations I've generally opted to fold or raise rather than call, and have had my usual share of right/wrong decisions. However, some players seem to have a total aversion to cold calling so, compared to some, I will propably appear to be a loose player.

Another stat I've looked at is evaluating the outcome of these plays using the filters in PT. So far my cold calls have resulted in a small profit so I'm reasonably pleased with my judgement so far. However, I've had a nagging feeling in some situations that I may be giving up too much.

Your thoughts would be appreciated. I've posted here rather than in the other forums as this is more of a general concept rather than a specific hand play or a discussion related solely to Internet play. Apologies if anyone thinks it belongs elsewhere.

Thanks

Sheriff