When to Call and When to Bet — Finally, Some Powerful Answers from에볼루션
November 1, 2022 | by Crouse Linwood
When to Call에볼루션and When to Bet “Somebody’s got to keep him honest,” Tom said, calling the bet. The next player to act raised. The original bettor realised. And poor Tom folded.
“Betting is more a matter of feel than science,” *pimp…* explained to me years ago in Gardena. I had folded before the draw. He had drawn two cards to queens with an ace kicker and made aces up. I knew this for a fact, because he showed me. Because he didn’t want other players around us to hear, his voice was low and conspiratorial. He immediately was raised by a pleasant 97-year-old woman in a frayed pantsuit — well, maybe not 97, but close enough. He called reluctantly, and lost. Poor *pimp…*.
We were playing hold’em and yong Harry said, “I’m going to fold. You’ve been bluffing too many times. I think this time you’ve got it.” He threw his cards away proudly. The man he was addressing then said, “You shoulda called me, son,” turning over a jack high with a smirk. He had missed a straight. Poor Harry.
I’m not singling those three players out for ridicule. Sometimes it seems as though these same mistakes are made by practically every Tom, *pimp…*, and Harry you meet at the poker table. And because these mistakes are so common, I think we should examine them today.
Tom’s Mistake
How many times have you heard that “Gotta keep ’em honest” line on casino en ligne francais? Well, there’s a bit of truth in it, because if you never call with questionably strong hands, your opponent can bluff whenever he chooses and will beat your brains out. Now, I tend to be a guy who thinks getting your brains beat out is bad poker, so I advocate calling sometimes to “keep ’em honest.” But when?
The simple answer is that you should call whenever you calculate that if you made the same call in the same situation a million times, you would show an overall profit. That sounds obvious to experienced players, but it’s important that beginners grasp the concept. You don’t much care about whether you’re going to make money by calling right now. In fact, most of the time, you’ll lose money by calling. And that’s how it should be, because — at least in limit poker — the rewards of winning the pot are always much greater than the cost of the call. Therefore, you’re risking much less by calling than the reward you’ll receive if you win. That means you can call and lose lots of times for every rare time you call and win — and you’ll still make money.
Catch a Bluff and Lose
So, sure, keep ’em honest at the river. You don’t want to be bluffed very often in limit poker. But the weaker your hand, the less likely you should be to try to catch a bluff. There comes a point where your hand is so weak that you can catch an opponent bluffing and lose. And, of course, if your hand is relatively strong, but not strong enough to catch most “legitimate” bets, you might unexpectedly beat opponents who are too exuberant in their value betting. So, even when you think you’re trying to catch a bluff, the stronger your hand is, the more likely you are to win.
This is even more important when you’re in a situation like Tom’s. Tom made the mistake of trying to catch a bluff without considering how many players remained to act behind him. One of the simple techniques I teach is to decide in advance when you’re the cop and when you’re not the cop. You’re the cop — and in a position to keep opponents “honest”— when you’re heads up or when you’re last to act and nobody has called. Hey, when nobody else calls, we’re all counting on you! Otherwise, we don’t get to see if the bettor is bluffing, and that can drive us crazy, right? But even if you’re in the last position and everyone else has passed, you still shouldn’t call all the time, and the stronger your hand is, the more likely you should be to call. Everyone knows that, but did you know that you often need a stronger hand to call in the last position after everyone has passed than you would if you were heads up?
How come? It’s because most casino en ligne francaisopponents are less likely to bluff into many opponents than they are just one opponent. Not only is this how most opponents play, they are correct in playing this way. Yes, the pot is usually bigger when there are more players. That means there’s more to win by bluffing and more to win by calling. But the success rate for a bluff is greatly reduced against many opponents. What happens in practice is that potential callers at the river, when there are many of them, do not adequately take into account how significantly overcalls diminish the value of a call. This lack of correct handicapping is true whether it applies to the original call or the overcall.
You Must Call Most of the Time
As I’ve explained before, if a single player would call only 50 percent of the time, it’s always a good idea to bluff. The pot is likely to be five times the size of the bet. So, if you lose your bet half the time and win the pot half the time, your profit is enormous. You lose $100 on one failed bluff; you win $500 on another bluff that works. That’s $400 profit on two attempts, or an average gain of $200 on a $100 bet — a 300 percent return on investment or a 200 percent gain. It’s what skilled players live for.
But what if there are two opponents who can call? What if they are oblivious to the fact that they should be more careful with their calls when there are several opponents in the pot? What if they continue to call half the time? Now, half the time that the bluffer survives the first opponent, he loses because the second opponent calls. That comes out to only a 25 percent chance of success — still enough to merit a bet, especially since the pot he’s shooting at is likely to be larger with more players. What if there are four potential callers? Then, there’s only a 6.25 percent chance (50 percent times 50 percent times 50 percent times 50 percent) that the bluff will succeed against opponents who won’t adapt. The odds are then 15-to-1 against success, and the bluff is unprofitable unless the pot is at least 15 times as large as the wager. And it gets worse if there are more players.