EV question

[Stu_Ungar]

This is more of a psychological question than anything else.

Lets assume that you have invested some money in a pot, on the turn the villain shoves. You calculate that the EV of calling is 0.

Do you call?

Can anyone offer a non emotional based reason for their decision?

 

[S93]

Hmmm very intresting question there Stu.

Only non emotional option i can think of to make this decision is if u think calling/folding will effect metagame in some way.
Like you where playing a bad hand and want to advertise your play, then you would probably go with the call rather then a fold.

But tbh i dont think u get into to many of these spots and what you do in them doesnt matter but its still a intresting topic.

If i think its a break even propasition i probably call cause i have the tendency to give villains to much credit so it might not be a neutral ev spot but a postive ev spot.



Edit: Also im asuming this refers to ring and not toruneys cause if it refers to tourneys there are alot more spots i fold.
For example:
Deep in a tourney cause i prefer to go with the varience lower spot in thouse situation.
Or basicly anytime excepted at the start of the tourney i would fold here since chips are so much more valuable.
Villain has my covered near the bubble.

So yeah basicly ring i probably call but tourney i fold like 80% of times.

 

[Heatherbrianne1]

i wouldnt call lol.. thats a tricky question tho.. gets u thinking!

 

[jdeliverer]

Assuming you are considering rake and all fees, tipping the dealer, etc...

As people before have said, if you want to advertise that people can bluff you, fold. If you have a crazy wild image or an image of being inexperienced and not knowing what you are doing, call. Whatever you think will put people off your true style.

Edit: Also take into account whether money to you is really linear. Obviously if this was a flip for your roll then you would fold because the hassle of putting money in the account, etc. is high. So I voted no, because the utility of money is nonlinear.

 

[RA2000]

That depends on your hand!
Do you think that you are still holding the best hand then you call.
If you do not think so then you fold...

 

[crow27]

If your EV is 0, I would think that are very FEW reasons to make that call.

I consider all these to be non-emotional.

TO CALL; TAG player. Advertising type of play.

TO FOLD; Over the long run, you will make ZERO money. Don't trust/have read
on villain. You don't have the nuts (too simple?)

By the way, I probably fold.

 

[F Paulsson]

If I have no idea what the player is doing this with and expect to be playing with him a lot, I probably call.

If the two criteria above don't both apply, I fold. Increasing variance without increasing profit is not something I enjoy.

 

[weksauce]

EASY!

The answer is fold or call.

If the opponent is smarter than you, FOLD.

If the opponent is less smart than you, CALL!

Why?

We need to think about this as poker, a game of partial information. By calling, we are revealing information.

We know that the situation is 0 EV, but we don't know his exact hand. (Or we do, follow the second comment below) If he's smarter than us, we don't want to give away our hand to him, because it's worth more to him to know our hand, than us to know his. Otherwise, vice versa.

If we already know his exact hand, FOLD for the reasons of money utility is non-linear (posts above) and you want to keep your hand secret.

If you think the advertising will help your EV from the other players at the table more than it will help villain, go ahead and CALL.

 

[zachvac]

If I have no idea what the player is doing this with and expect to be playing with him a lot, I probably call.

If the two criteria above don't both apply, I fold. Increasing variance without increasing profit is not something I enjoy.

This. The other criteria though is that it doesn't give as much info to our opponent as to us. If we are a winning player lowering variance without winrate suffering is always a good thing so I fold unless I think there is future ev to be had by calling and getting this information.

 

[Mase31683]

I call here, because it helps with the image. If EV=0, why not get in there and gamble? Embrace the variance, lol. Show everyone that you're willing to get it in real thin. On top of that, they see that you'll call off a stack on a hand like that, then your shoving range should be wider still. This can lead to getting more and looser action later on in the session, which should translate to a nicer winrate.

 

[witl69]

I cant see any reason to make the call here unless ya just like giveing ya money away lol. But then again I have seen some donks do it before.

 

[Mase31683]

I cant see any reason to make the call here unless ya just like giveing ya money away lol. But then again I have seen some donks do it before.

You're not giving money away at all. No matter what you do the outcome is the same, you will on average make no money. The only thing you will do is increase variance, which bothers some people. I want my opponents to be aware that playing a pot with me is going to get our chips in the middle, that I court variance.

I use this image to win pots that villains may feel they can wrestle from others by making moves on them, but against me they won't try the same because they know I'm likely to put all our chips in the center, which makes them uncomfortable.

 

[F Paulsson]

If you can make the image of "I call shoves light" work, then good for you. Personally, I think this is a spot where Zach's third criterion - you telling them more about your style of play than you learn about theirs - comes into play and unless you're up against extremely easily scared players the advantage in future pots goes to them and not to you.

If you had said that you like making zero-EV shoves (as opposed to calls) then I could see where you're coming from, but embracing variance through calling is not something I see benefiting your image or your win-rate.

 

[Mase31683]

Lol, yeah the whole calling thing kind of makes it weird. The effect isn't quite the same for sure as the shoves. But it can definitely still work out. If players adjust their shoving ranges lighter against you, and you're cognizant of that, you can adjust and take advantage.

 

[zachvac]

Lol, yeah the whole calling thing kind of makes it weird. The effect isn't quite the same for sure as the shoves. But it can definitely still work out. If players adjust their shoving ranges lighter against you, and you're cognizant of that, you can adjust and take advantage.

The problem is you get into a guessing game about how they adjusted to you while they know exactly how to adjust to you. How do you know how an opponent is adjusting to you? Some opponents probably don't even notice while others will adjust in different ways (some correctly some not). Trying to guess how they react to the information you gave them is going to be very tough to do.