How often should you call?

[Louie Landale]

If the opponent is either bluffing or has you beat, and this solid opponent bets, then I know your call/fold ratio should, theoretically, bet the same as the pot-odds ratio.

I was wondering if this was pretty much a universal principal. Lets say your hand is obvious and fairly strong. The sound opponent bets 1bb into a 5bb pot giving you 6:1 to call. Should you actually call 6 times for every once that you fold? Or do you need to do real tough anaylsis, speculating on the range of hands he might have or be drawing to, the chances of each outdrawing, etc. etc.?

- Louie

[rayrns]

I hope someone can answer your question as that type situation occured last night to me in a live game.

I had trip T's when on the turn the 3rd suited card hit. I checked and opponent bet, indicating the flush. River brought a 4th of the suit. I again checked and was bet into. I have a hard time releasing trips and called to see the obvious flush. I would guess have guessed that he would have been holding this 90% of the time. Should I have just folded on the river.

[CrackerZack]

[ QUOTE ]
Should you actually call 6 times for every once that you fold?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, the odds shouldn't make the difference in number of times you do each, its more based on the chance that he is bluffing. generally, if you called every time here, you really wouldn't be giving up very much.

[Copernicus]

I think the correct principle is that the pot odds ratio needs to equal or better the real hand/bluff ratio. If you are getting 6/1 pot odds, and put him on 80% for a real hand and 20% for a bluff, you call 100% of the time, not 6 out of 7. Likewise if you put him 90% real and 10% bluff, you fold 100% of the time, because you arent getting the 9/1 that you need.

[Paul2432]

If your opponent plays optimally, or you know nothing about how he plays, calling 6/7ths of the time is your best strategy.

However, most opponents do not play optimally, they either bluff too much or too little. Against these opponents, either always call or always fold accordingly.

The way to determine whether your opponent bets too much or too little is to do the "real tough analysis" that you mention. Note though, that your observation must be based over many hands, not just the hand in question.

Paul

[Louie Landale]

I think the responders have missed my point. There surely must be SOME way to theoretically determine a calling frequency against a real good theoretically sound opponent.

But this frequency must be based somewhat on the strength of your hand as well as the size of the pot. Surely you aren't going to call on the river with 3 high; also surely you are never going to fold an AceHigh straight flush.

So even with 6 bets in the pot against someone who knows your strategy and will use it against you, I don't think your ACTUAL calling frequency it going to be 6:1. But I really don't have any idea how to go about calculating it.

- Louie

[bygmesterf]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the responders have missed my point. There surely must be SOME way to theoretically determine a calling frequency against a real good theoretically sound opponent.

But this frequency must be based somewhat on the strength of your hand as well as the size of the pot. Surely you aren't going to call on the river with 3 high; also surely you are never going to fold an AceHigh straight flush.

So even with 6 bets in the pot against someone who knows your strategy and will use it against you, I don't think your ACTUAL calling frequency it going to be 6:1. But I really don't have any idea how to go about calculating it.

- Louie

[/ QUOTE ]

Ues such a thing exists, and formulas
have been made for the games of Draw Poker Hi and Lowball.

The basic idea, and this a game theory thing. Is that you call often enough, that your opponents profit from bluffing is minimised if they bluffed optimally. The way you do that is you calculate your optimal calling frequency from the pot size. And then you rank the possible hands that you could have. If you should call 80% of the time based on the size of the pot, then you call with your top 80% of possible hands.

The take home from all this is that if the pot gets's big, a final "loose call" is often correct if you have some type of hand. One way to justify it is by thinking of your final call as backup for your hand reading skills.

Bygmesterf --

[ChipWrecked]

The internet is making me soft.
My first thought was, "I'd just go find another table."

[bigpooch]

It's quite simple: optimal or theoretically correct
play on the end is as you said determined by the
strength of your hand and the pot size. Suppose
the pot size is P and the bet size is B. If your
opponent knew that you would fold with a frequency
of more than B/(P+B), a bluff on his part would be
a +EV play. Also, if your opponent knew that you
would call with a frequency of more than P/(P+B),
a bluff on his part would be a -EV play. Thus,
your calling (including the rare times you would
raise) frequency would be P/(P+B) and it turns out
that this is the optimal or game theoretical
calling frequency. Hence, you would call with
the top P/(P+B) fraction of hands that you could
possibly hold in that specific situation and fold
with the worst B/(P+B) fraction.

Thus, when the pot contains P bets, the calling
frequency is P/(P+1) or the folding frequency is
1/(P+1).

[Louie Landale]

Calling frequency based on the exact strength of your hand works for such things as Lowball since you can,and do, have a very wide range of hands: there are a LOT of hands, good and marginal, with which you would stand pat.

But it doesn't work so well for Holdem, where its usually pretty obvious what you have. If the opponent correctly knows you have either AA, KingsWithAce, or trip Ks, your calling frequency idea falls apart. Your strategy would probably dictate always fold the AK, always call with trips, and call with some frequency ONLY with the exact hand AA; say fold with the red AAs otherwise call.

- Louie