Posts Tagged ‘top pair’

Cold Calling in Poker

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

One concept that beginning poker players may not be totally familiar with is cold calling. Basically, cold calling involves making a call when at least two actions have been made (one involving a raise) before your turn to act. For example, if one opponent bets, another opponent raises, and you call, this would be considered cold calling. Seeing as how two players ahead of you have shown some hand strength, this isn’t exactly the ideal time to be bluffing or trying to draw with a marginal hand.

For example, let’s say that you’re sitting in middle position with KQ(o), and an early position player bets, then the player to your right raises; assuming at least one of the players isn’t a total maniac, you’re facing a dilemma here. Sure K-Q is a solid drawing hand since it has top pair and high-straight potential, but is it really +EV to call in this situation.

Some might consider this to be a good enough starting hand to cold call a raise with, but the majority of skilled poker players will pass on this one – even with position. After all, you’ve got somebody who raised from early-middle position, knowing that they have the potential to be called or re-raised later on.

Assuming you make the call anyways, you’ll often be put into a difficult post-flop position. For example, let’s say that the flop was A-Q-7 rainbow, which isn’t bad for you because you paired the queen. However, you also have to contend with the possibility that your opponent had AK or AQ, and they now have top pair. Of course, they could have pocket jacks as well, and this will take knowing your opponent’s range in order to decide if it’s worth calling any future bets they make.

But long story short, you need a very good hand to make a cold call in online poker because the opponents ahead of you have shown a considerable amount of strength.

Value Bet Factors

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

If you’re still getting used to value betting in poker – which involves extracting the most value without making opponents fold when ahead – here are a few factors that will help you get the hang of this concept:

Opponent’s Hand Strength – By putting your opponent on a range during the hand in question, while also knowing something about their previous play, you’ll have a good idea about their hand strength. And the better you think this hand strength is, the higher the value bet you can place since they’ll be less likely to fold.

Opponent’s Assessment of your Hand – The amount of money you make from a hand will all depend on how the other player looks at your holdings. For example, if the other player thinks they have you beat, you can make much bigger value bets. To understand this factor, think about how the opponent would view you based on your previous play.

How Likely the Other Player is to fold – You can get even more value out of a great hand when the opponent is a calling station, or has a very difficult time putting something like top pair down.

Now that we’ve discussed the three big factors of value betting, it’s important to note just how important these factors are. After all, the amount of money you make off of value bets will go a long way to determining your success as a player. And assuming you play a lot of poker each month, your value betting edge could mean a difference of thousands of dollars!

Your experience with the stakes you normally play will be a huge factor in your value betting success, so just be patient and keep picking up on what you’re doing right and wrong when it comes to this concept.