Cold Calling

[spy587]

Long time lurker and relative beginer to poker here. Could someone explain to me the reason that cold calling is such a heinous act. If you look across the forum I often see people describing their leaks as cold calling too much, and I agree that it is bad to have a lack of aggression when you should actually be reraising instead of calling, but it often seems to me with fairly good hands in many cases it would just be best to call. Help on this would be greatly appreciated.

[defence18]

Because if you are in a game with good players, chances are your "pretty good hand" is no good unless you're lucky. If UTG raises, and you are in middle position and look down at KQs or AJs you are most likely in trouble.

[Dov]

The main reasons why cold calling is so bad are:

1. You do not force your opponent to make a decision. Therefore, he cannot make another mistake. If he does make a mistake, it will cost him another bet, not the whole pot.

2. You do not gain any information about your opponent's hand. When you reraise someone, you are defining your hand strongly. Their reaction to this is often genuine.

3. It is more difficult to win without hitting your hand. If you suddenly wake up at the end of the hand, your opponent will likely be suspicious and call you down. This makes it much more difficult to bluff your way out of a bind. (This kind of play is opponent specific anyway, but needs to be set up in the early betting rounds as well as prior hands.)

This all assumes a limit game, BTW. Cold calling is not as bad in NL - but it still depends on your opponents...

[jackfrost]

Heres when I think cold calling preflop is correct.
1. I've got a small pair and i'm getting good odds on my set. I think a 3bet here would narrow the field and actually make my odds worse.
2. I'm in a pot where a 3bet won't narrow the field and i'm very likeley to show down the hand. Say your up against a player who raises 20% of the time and shows down 60% of the time. If i can't isolate us and my hand needs improvement, a 3bet here is pointless. Or say your up against a player who has to have a large pair to raise the pot and he's not dropping it, and you have jts and the the pot is going to be seven way. No need to put more money in the pot.

Almost all of my preflop and flop raises are designed to protect my hand, next is value and information.

As the game gets tighter your aggression has to increase because of the chance of your opponent folding. But in lots of games you know that you are going to have to show a hand down. Simply look at your opponents went to showdown statistic to determine how to play against him and try to recognize when your raise will actually give you a better chance of winning. Don't be a robot.

[ClaytonN]

There's a whole lot of bad advice in this post. I'll let others elaborate, because correcting the mistakes would take me 15 minutes I'm not willing to spend.

[jackfrost]

Keep on raising calling stations clayton. Don't get me wrong, I very rarely cold call, i'm just saying there are times when it is correct.

[Spladle Master]

[ QUOTE ]
There's a whole lot of bad advice in this post. I'll let others elaborate, because correcting the mistakes would take me 15 minutes I'm not willing to spend.

[/ QUOTE ]

[senjitsu]

Dov lists some pretty good reasons not to cold call (though I would say her reasons are a lot more applicable to NL and or tournament play), but misses the most important reason of all.

Simply put, most starting hands do not offer a positive return on investment if you have to pay 2SB to see a flop.

There are relatively few starting hands that make enough money, in the long run, to show a positive return on a two small bet investment. For example, you will win a huge pot (most of the time) when you make a set of threes with 3c3d -- but the pot just wont be huge enough to offset all the other times you muck your hand on the flop or the turn.

Are there hands that can still show a positive return on a 2SB investment? Sure, especially in a game with a lot of players seeing the flop (SSHE's late position, loose game reccomendations, for example, reccommend cold calling with any pocket pair below TT and a wide variety of suited aces and connectors provided there are sufficient limpers.)

jc




[ QUOTE ]
The main reasons why cold calling is so bad are:

1. You do not force your opponent to make a decision. Therefore, he cannot make another mistake. If he does make a mistake, it will cost him another bet, not the whole pot.

2. You do not gain any information about your opponent's hand. When you reraise someone, you are defining your hand strongly. Their reaction to this is often genuine.

3. It is more difficult to win without hitting your hand. If you suddenly wake up at the end of the hand, your opponent will likely be suspicious and call you down. This makes it much more difficult to bluff your way out of a bind. (This kind of play is opponent specific anyway, but needs to be set up in the early betting rounds as well as prior hands.)

This all assumes a limit game, BTW. Cold calling is not as bad in NL - but it still depends on your opponents...

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[senjitsu]

[ QUOTE ]

1. I've got a small pair and i'm getting good odds on my set. I think a 3bet here would narrow the field and actually make my odds worse.


[/ QUOTE ]
From late position, sure. If you're getting proper odds on your set... which I would say is 4-6 other people in the pot
with you. From earlier position (where you can't be sure you will get big enough volume in the pot to justify the investment) or in a tighter game, its worth it to just throw the small pair away.
[ QUOTE ]

2. I'm in a pot where a 3bet won't narrow the field and i'm very likeley to show down the hand. Say your up against a player who raises 20% of the time and shows down 60% of the time. If i can't isolate us and my hand needs improvement, a 3bet here is pointless. Or say your up against a player who has to have a large pair to raise the pot and he's not dropping it, and you have jts and the the pot is going to be seven way. No need to put more money in the pot.


[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, if the pots going to be seven-way and not three bet a hand like JTs is probably worth a cold call (SSHE would argue that it is). But the thing is, you can only "know" that from late position, after several people have already entered the pot.

[ QUOTE ]

Almost all of my preflop and flop raises are designed to protect my hand, next is value and information.


[/ QUOTE ]
Makes sense, but I think when someone says "player X cold calls too much" he's talking about a player who cold calls with hands that he should be folding like A6s, 33, 89s from early position (or when there are not enough people in the pot) and hands like KTo, QTo, JKo, 89o, A8o from any position.


[ QUOTE ]

As the game gets tighter your aggression has to increase because of the chance of your opponent folding.

[/ QUOTE ]

In a tighter game, cold calling is almost never correct. There simply arent that many hands that can:
A. be played profitably for two bets with only one or two other opponents in the pot and
B. Do not demand a value raise. Yeah, there are still a few (AQs, for example), but most hands with which you can call a raise in a tight game make more money when reraised.

[AaronBrown]

I agree with defence18, Dov, Spladle Master and senjitsu; who gave you a lot of good analysis. However, I would add that poker players, like Presidents, should never say "never." Because there are so few situations in which cold-calling is correct, it can be very disconcerting to your opponents. They will probably peg you as a bad player with a pretty strong hand, you can exploit that misperception. Once they learn that you are a good player, they may fold rather than try to figure out what's going on. That can also be exploited.

Every time it's your turn you can fold, call or raise. If you rule out one of those options, you lose some possible value and make your game more predictable. Just because most people do something too much doesn't mean you should never do it. So cold calling is not heinous, just a tactic that should be used very rarely.