Value calls? Dan Harrington's advice

[CurryLover]

I'm posting this here rather than in books and software because it is a strategy question, although it is related to Dan Harrington's new book.

In several places in Harrington on Hold'em, he advises making what I guess could be termed 'value calls'. For example, the flop comes with 2 of a suit and gives you, say, TPTK or two pair, you bet the flop and turn and get a caller, and then the river brings the third flush card. When your opponent bets into you on the river, Harrington gives some advice that made me think a bit:

Basically, he says that you are probably beaten - which reasonable enough - and that you would fold to a large(ish) river bet - which again seems reasonable. However, he then goes on to say that, if the river bet was small enough then you should call - in the hope that your opponent is bluffing or is betting a hand that you can beat. He says this is justified because of pot odds, which does make sense of course. However, I don't think I fully understand this point. Say for example, your opponent - who you think rivered his flush - bets out only 1/6 of the pot. Harrington says you should call, presumably because of pot odds, but would fold to a larger bet of, say, 1/3 of the pot. But, if you were playing in a limit hold'em tourney, you would probably fold in this case if the opponent bet into a pot that already contained 6 bets. I understand there are differences between limit/NL, but in this example the odds and everything would be exactly the same. So how can this be correct?

It does seem that at NL players tend to call a small bet on the end because of the pot odds, whereas they'd fold against exactly the same size bet into exactly the same size pot at limit.

I'm sure Harrington is right on this one - but I don't understand quite why. Is it because good limit players (i.e. those who can lay down a hand) tend to pass too much? (I'm sure Ed Miller would agree with this) Or is it something else that I've not grasped properly.

[schwza]

i'm not much of a limit player, but my understanding is that you should make some fairly loose calls on the river for one more bet when there's a decent pot, b/c it's a disaster to fold the best hand. i think throwing away TPTK on the river when the flush gets there, for example, is not a standard limit play.

[sdplayerb]

I would think one of the reasons is that you usually have many more BB in nolimit than limit, so such a call would hurt your stack less.

[37offsuit]

The reason I would think is that in no limit, you are typically giving draws bad odds to chase, so that there is more of a chance that the bet out on the river is a bluff or a bet intended to determine whether a hand is good without having to call a larger bet from the aggressor, using the draw as an opportunity. In limit the draws are calling because they have proper odds. They bet out on the river to make sure they get paid for their draw rather than checked behind.