On calling river raises...

[Everlong]

Reading this hand (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=8245304&an=0&page=1#Post 8245304) posted by neverforgetlol got me thinking a bit about calling river raises.

This post is a bit of a blanket statement but bear with me....

So in the above post I advocate calling the first, small river raise.
But in effect I think calling might be wrong.

Who raises this river that we are beating?
AK? I think at the very best we are calling for a split.

This got me thinking further about a similar aspect, block-betting river then going ahead anyway calling the min-raise based on pot-odds. I am an expert in this field.
My usual reasoning is "I only have to be right 1/7 or 1/5 blabla to warrant a call".


Although I cannot succesfully filter in PT for hands where I called a river raise I can intiutively tell you that the percentage of hands I have won after calling a river raise (especially after firing out a blocker) must be minute. I simply don't think a lot of river raises, especially from solid opponents are bluffs/made with weaker hands that we beat in situations where we have fired a blocker.

I look forward to your thoughts on this and also any help on filtering in PT to actually have a look at this.

I imagine that I would have saved a ridiculous amount of money by simply generally not calling river raises.

[Leviathan101]

The whole point of blockers on the river is to keep it cheap with a hand with showdown value. Unless its some LAG who attacks weak bets with air, when you block and you get raised you should generally be folding. Otherwise its just a poorly placed value bet.

If you decide you want to see showdown with a hand and will call a raise on a block, just check/call. At least you pick off some bluffs and more marginal hands this way.

[eigenvalue]

YES YOU CAN SAVE A LOT OF MONEY BY FOLDING TO RIVER RAISES AND RERAISES!
In late September / early October I had some very successful weaks earning $5-$8 per hour at NL $25. The major reason was my patience in NOT calling all-in raises or reraises. Playing that way, I lost my entire stack only a very few times. The money You don't loose You must not win back! But You have to be aware! You can't lay down any hand to any reraise on the river. My experience is, that if You do that a few times, at least 2-3 players at Your table start to play very aggressive against You. So the bluff rate and the reraise rate on the river and on other streets goes out of the window if You folded to river reraises earlier a few times for some reason. You must be able to make stands and pick up spots where You call them after You folded to a few ones earlier. If You don't, You'll get pushed around. But if You are able to pick up Your spots, it's great. You not only save money by not loosing Your entire stack in some kind of ridiculous guessing, You earn money by picking up stupid bluffs later and double up. But this part is difficult and I'm not perfect, I try to improve consistantly on this part.

Later in October, there was Tien's famous thread, I moved up to NL $50 and thought to play more aggressively, reraising a lot on the flop, making CB's on the flop and on the turn, like he explained. It was terrible, it couldn't get any worse! I lost the whole money in 1 week that I won during my great phase earlier. I suffered some horrible bad beats and lost several buy-ins to 6/5/2 - outers, but I'm sure the major reason of my drop down was that I played to aggressivly, raising to much, reraising to much, calling to much all-ins. Maybe I didn't understand Tiens thread or concept. But I know, that way of playing is not the way I will be successful - never!

Now I'm back at the $25 level, I play my old style, I reraise rarely, I lay down hands and lay down hands and lay down hands ... and then, the pot comes where I make my stand and pick up someones entire stack. That works, that makes me earn money. And once again, I like the advices of real pros more than advices from semi-like pros in this forum! Mike Caros says: If You play against weaker opponents, don't reraise that much. Reraising makes Your weaker opponents to play better and stronger against You. This is one of the best advices I've ever read and I believe, it's true. But it cost me $600 to proof it. The second advice comes from an anonymus internet pro. His advice: If someone reraises You all-in on the river, You should be very patient. He says: " I love my stack in these situations!" I try to remember that every time I sit at the table. Unfortunately, I'm to often to impatient in the heat of the battle! And I'm not perfect in reading bluffs. I get better, but I have to work on that, I have to work on that really hard.

One last word. In this forum, there are lots of advices to move all-in now and then, and there are by far to much of these advices. Most of them are terrible. It's easy to spend the money of another player, it's so easy. There are to many players who aim to have the PPT stats of a TAG. Because of that, they may have to call the all-ins. To lay down a hand, seems weak, tight, stupid. I got slaughert on some posts where I suggested to wait for a better time to make a stand, because that's not TAG like. The same happend when I suggested to underbet some pots. Wow! I'm not sitting at a table to be a TAG or to receive TAG stats. If other players see me as weak tight, or sometimes as a calling station, that's great. I want them to think that way. They sit at the table to play TAG or to get TAG stats, I sit there to win money - as much as possible. AND I DO!

[Gelford]

Grunch


I never thought much about river raises. The thing is, usually I on flop or somewhere around there decide whether I am looking to felt the mofo or not, and so either build a huge pot as quickly as possible ... or try to keep it small.


In the first case villian and I have not enough firepower so make raises viable and in the second pot is small and I usually have played with blocking/potcontrol in mind so I fould.


Not that there is all there is to it or I am great or anything, I just haven't noticed river raises as being an issue in my own playing. Maybe that is a leak in my game ? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Everlong]

[ QUOTE ]
The whole point of blockers on the river is to keep it cheap with a hand with showdown value. Unless its some LAG who attacks weak bets with air, when you block and you get raised you should generally be folding. Otherwise its just a poorly placed value bet.

If you decide you want to see showdown with a hand and will call a raise on a block, just check/call. At least you pick off some bluffs and more marginal hands this way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I totally agree with this but I obv lack discipline in this department and end up calling a blocker raise from time to time...

Bumping this for any ideas on pt filtering...impossible?