Random Thoughts On Calling The River

[Billman]

I’ve read a few posts over the last few days regarding whether or not to call a bet on the river when you think you might be beat. Maybe through the magic of suggestive recall last night I happened to pay particular notice to some hands meeting the very same criteria. I have to admit that I’ve taken a whole new outlook on how to play this situation based on Ed “Don’t fold for one bet” Miller’s posts here as well as after reading SSH but I thought that I might attempt to expand on the subject a bit further. I’m not pretending to be the expert on the subject but it seems a lot of people seemed to be having difficulty with this recently so I thought I would throw my thoughts out there and let people kick them (or perhaps even me) around.

Really, at the river there are only a few different situations you can be in. Generally they would fall into the following groupings:

1. You were ahead (or thought you were ahead) and then you get bet into or check-raised on the river with a seemingly safe card (e.g. it doesn’t make a straight or flush).
2. A scary card hits on the river and a caller becomes a bettor (or they check raise).
3. You were on a draw that missed and you have absolutely no hand.
4. You were on a draw that missed and you have top pair or better.
5. You were on a draw that missed and you have mediocre pair.

The first scenario is probably the scariest. I have seen people slow play pocket aces, sets, and all sorts of hands waiting to spring a raise on their opponent on the river. In fact, last night I made a jack high flush against another player who had been slow playing his pocket aces and he check-raised me on the river. I started running through all the hands he could have and reluctantly called expecting to see the A – Q high flush. Instead he flips up two aces and then starts ranting about how he hates that hand because he always loses with it.

That was one of the lucky cases. Most of the time, you’re beat. Not only are you beat but you’ve been beat since the flop. They probably flopped a set or just called when QQx hit the board and they were holding a Q. As painful as it may seem you have to call this hand down. If you don’t call the river bet you’ll surely get pegged as someone who folds weak hands on the river and others will begin putting you to the test with bluffs. You’ll run into enough guys who slow played a pair of aces or some other hand that you can beat enough times that even when every bone in your body is telling you he’s got you beat, you should probably call anyway.

Despite the fact that the second scenario seems like the worst possible case, it’s probably not. While in many cases you will, in fact, be beat, a scary card hitting on the river will induce many aggressive players to bluff. They figure that the worst case scenario is that you’ll just call (they don’t think far enough ahead to consider the possible re-raise). In terms of percentages, because of the attractiveness of bluffing, on a percentage bases (times beat vs. times bluffed) you’re probably going to come out of this ahead far more often than if a blank hits and you get check-raised as in scenario one. Call it down and take your lumps.

Scenario three is probably the only time I would lay the hand down. You’ve missed your draw and you don’t even have a pair. You’re basically hoping that high card pulls the pot. That’s a low enough probability that you can lay this one down.

Scenario four is another one I encountered last night. I had been going for the nut straight, AQ, flop came AKJ and there was crazy betting between four players on the flop and turn and I was bet into on the river. I bit the bullet and called the bet on the river knowing someone had at least two pair but more likely had made their straight (turn and river where 98). I almost fell out of my chair when the chips moved in my direction and I took down a 20BB pot with a pair of aces. One player had aces with a weaker kicker, another had 79 and the last guy had Kx). In a big pot like this you have to knuckle down and make the call. I could make this play and be wrong 20 more times before I would approach break-even.

The last scenario is the only one I have trouble with and I try to judge my opponent before making a call. If he’s a solid player who seldom bluffs, I lay this down. This is especially true is he started out on the flop showing some aggression but then backed off when raised (i.e. Flop comes Kc Th 7c and you had Ac Tc and he bet out at you on the flop, you raised and he check-called you to the river). If he’s a habitual bluffer or my Spidy-Sense tells me he smelled my weakness with the check to him and he’s betting into me to get me to lay it down I might call if I think I have a good read on what hand he might have had.

Final Thoughts:

As Ed Miller points out both in his posts as well as in SSH, in big pots you should probably call even if you think you’re beat. In small pots, don’t waste another bet if you think you’re beat. If you call down a big pot you thought you were beat in and win one time in ten you’ll still make money. It’s a low percentage play (i.e. you’ll have the best hand only a small percentage of the time) but the payout in a large pot is big enough to make up for that one bet you put in to see the showdown all of the other times plus some.

Just think of the called bet on the river as a super-big blind. You have to pay it. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[ohgeetee]

He also talks about not making this play vs players you judge to be tricky. Going by SSH often labels you are overly aggressive to the table, so getting slowplayed once in awhile is to be expected. you should make up the difference and then some between those times when you are successfully slowplayed against.

good post imo, gives a nice rundown of what to expect on the river.

[Billman]

[ QUOTE ]
He also talks about not making this play vs players you judge to be tricky.

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually had that backfire on one guy a couple of weeks ago. I had As Ks, flop came something like Qh Js Th. The turn and river both came up spades giving me the nut flush and the nut straight. Some guy figures me for the straight and raises me on the river. I re-raise, he re-raises me again, etc. until he finally calls. He flips up Qx and I flip up my hand and type in the chat box "Next time you're going to try and bluff me, you better be pretty damn sure you're not trying to represent the hand I already have." [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I think it just goes to show that you can't lay it down to these guys. Some people will bluff at you with anything.