Cold call a raise question

[Joe B.]

what are the starting cards that ok to cold call a raise?

[macdaddy991]

who is the raiser, what position are you in, how many other callers, these are all factors to consider rather then a strict hand chart

[Webster]

As a REAL general rule of thumb. IF you are going to cold call a raise your cards have to be BETTER then what you would need to raise the hand.

I won't call a riase with anything unsuited unless I have AK

Suited I'll go down to AQ but it's pretty table independent.

Take your minumin raising hand and make it 2 hands better and there ya go!


Grinders Warehouse BLOG Edition

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Depends on position and the action before you. SSH suggests that if you are cold-calling a raise more often than 1/550 hands, you're doing it too much.

Thus, the best rule of thumb is to *never* cold call a raise. 3-bet or fold. Reraising or folding that 1/550 hand where a cold call is technically correct is a tiny error. Cold calling more frequently is a big error.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I won't call a riase with anything unsuited unless I have AK

Suited I'll go down to AQ but it's pretty table independent.


In both these examples, cold-calling is wrong. You should be 3-betting the AK 99.9% of the time, and only cold-calling with the AQs in position *and* with callers between you and the raiser (I even cringe at that).

[SheridanCat]

[ QUOTE ]
Thus, the best rule of thumb is to *never* cold call a raise. 3-bet or fold. Reraising or folding that 1/550 hand where a cold call is technically correct is a tiny error. Cold calling more frequently is a big error.

[/ QUOTE ]

This might be the single most useful thing a beginning player can learn.

T

[AmarilloJim1]

As a general rule of thumb, I only cold call with Sklansky's group 2 or better hands.

[playersare]

for speculative, multiway hands like strong suited neighbors and middle pocket pairs, you need to have at least several existing cold callers, or be absolutely certain that there will be weak callers behind you in order to justify the odds of hitting. like other posters said, the situations where this would occur would be extremely rare, and even if it came up, it would never be completely "wrong" to chuck it anyway.

if you do have a legitimate Group 1 holding (or possible Group 2 if the raiser is loose), especially a "one-way" hand like AKo, the only choice is to reraise and isolate the player to your right, buy yourself late position heads-up. you need to have the higher EV cards preflop at least 50% of the time against the raiser going in, for this play to be profitable in the long run.

[Joe B.]

so cold calling a raise, i should only re-raise with AA-TT,AKs-AJs, KQs, AK and fold everything else in any position.

because in Getting Started in Hold'em book by Mason it says to do that if there a raise in front? is that the same thing as cold calling a Raise?

[playersare]

[ QUOTE ]
so cold calling a raise, i should only re-raise with AA-TT,AKs-AJs, KQs, AK and fold everything else in any position.
because in Getting Started in Hold'em book by Mason it says to do that if there a raise in front? is that the same thing as cold calling a Raise?

[/ QUOTE ]
cold-calling and re-raising are NOT the same thing. for beginners, you should probably not play ANY raised hands preflop with anything except AA, KK, QQ, AKs and AKo (with even QQ and AKo borderline). anything lower than that, you will probably not play well enough postflop to make them +EV.

when in doubt, tend to lean towards playing tighter rather than looser. betting too many weaker hands is the primary bankroll eater of new poker players.