London Calling

I believe that, as a rule, calling is a bad idea. If you think you are going to win, you should raise to maximize the pot. If you don't think you will win, you should fold, no matter how tough the fold is. Believing that you *might* win is relying on luck, and is therefore a state of mind that a serious poker player should avoid. I don't always follow this rule, because I'm not always on my game, but if someone leads the betting and I'm following all the way along, I feel like a loser even when luck is with me and I take the pot.

The exception is when you're calling the blind preflop, with no raises. The two preflop cards you get are not a poker hand, so you have no genuine basis for forming a belief as to whether you'll win.

Of course, you can be 100% convinced that you're going to win and still lose, and chances are your losses playing this way will be bigger. But you'll end up losing less money than you win if you follow three simple rules: (1) If someone chases your lead and draws you out, be tough enough to fold immediately and save one or two large bets. (2) Fold to any bet after the flop when you don't think you've established dominance, and you save one small and three large bets. (3) Always lean toward folding preflop, so that, in 50/50 situations, you don't waste even a single bet seeing the flop.

Mind you, this is coming from a guy who likes to play tight aggressive and semibluff perhaps too much. I'd love to know what your perspectives are on this.

The Bleeder

(I'm assuming you're generally talking about LHE here, though calling in NLHE is not the strongest play in most situations either)
well as for throughout the hand (preflop flop and turn), raising is definitely a must (unless you are on a weaker draw and odds basically say only to call)
but on the river, there are tons of situations where calling is the best option
I'm currently going through Phil Hellmuth's Texas Hold'em and he says so himself that he turns into a calling station. He does this because often the odds are in your favour unless you're in a nothing pot with like 3 BBs in the middle.
that's the only condition where calling is often the best option (except when you feel you're in the lead, then raising is the obvious action here)

this reminded me of one of those FullTilt articles by their pros (this is a NLHE strategic tip though):
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/proLessons.php?lesson=42

Yes, Chuck, I was talking about limit. No limit is, IMO, a totally different game, and I'm not that good at it. In fact, I avoid no limit because my experience is that one bad beat can bust you, and everyone takes a bad beat sooner or later. The only no limit I'll play is tournaments.

The article you referred me to talks mostly about preflop play. I say again that, before the flop, YOU DON'T HAVE A POKER HAND YET. You just have two cards. Therefore, you have no reasonable way of determining whether you're the favourite or underdog. That sometimes means calling the blind, or even a raise, just so you can see the flop and form a true poker hand. My comments in my last message were directed to play after the flop. At that time, unless you've been trapped, you usually know whether you have a dominant hand or a dominated hand. My definition of "dominant hand" is "a hand that the card percentages say is the likely best hand still in play." If you have AK and the flop is 27K, your hand is dominant provided several conditions are met (e.g., nobody raised preflop with 55, your opponent isn't some guy from Calais, France who calls with 27 offsuit, etc.) Then the betting pattern usually rounds out the picture and you have a good idea of whether and when you're beat.

One thing I don't understand from the article is this stuff about being pot committed. That has long struck me as a silly concept. If you're beaten, you fold and save whatever chips you have left. The chips you've already put into the pot aren't yours any more.

The Bleeder

sorry actually that was the wrong article
the one i'm thinking of is one with Jesus Ferguson - gimme 2 minutes and i'll find it
it talks about calls being a great play for trapping, and also for deception with weaker hands...anyways you'll see what i mean

as for being pot-committed, i think it involves factoring in how sure you are (in %) that you have the best hand, and using pot-odds for the opponent's bet to determine whether or not you should call.
When you have say 500 chips in the pot, and someone pushes for 100 more then you're getting 6:1 on your hand - if you're
more than %20 sure that you have the best hand, then you can call
i dunno i'm still a newbie with all the math behind poker, but i think that being pot-committed has somethin to do with that
Though, Mike Caro, the 'best researcher and theorist' of poker, says that you should never consider what you have already invested in a pot when making a decision later in a hand...so obviously he doesn't think being pot-committed is a good reason to call bets in poker.

here it is, though it is also on NLHE. Nevertheless great insight into the advantages of calling:
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/proLessons.php?lesson=50

I don't agree with you AlwaysStuck. I think calling is often a correct play. In hands with 1-2 opponents I agree you should almost always raise or fold. But if you're in a multiway pot with a draw the correct play will often depend on your position and the original bettors position. So saying calling is bad here would mean you sometimes would scare people out of the pot,when you want them to hang around. If you play in some loose games where 4-5 people see the flop, the pot will often be so big on the that if there's just a slight chance you'll win it you have to call one single river bet. The key is to put a % to how big you think your chance is of winnning and the selecting to fold call or raise based on that. Why would you raise or fold if you think there's a 40% chance you're winning against 1 single opponent? Calling is the obvious riverplay here, no matter how small or big the pot is.

Nice Post AlwaysStuck, ( repped )
In limit Hold Em, you need to be asking questions of your opponents if you wish to stay in the hand.
Their reactions to your raises will afford you to gain vital information with regards to where you are in the hand.


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