Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

I am not mainly of a tournament player but I think I have a pretty good understanding of the concepts and poker in general. I have tried a little rule for myself the recent tournaments I have played that feels pretty good for many reasons.

That is to never under any circumstances coldcall a raise, not in position and not from the blinds, period.

What do you think about this rule, is it a good one or do you lose much by doing this? Of course its style depending but I think it might be a good rule for many players.

The main reason I try it is because many of the tournament I have played lately I had bust out by getting into awkward spots after calling a raise with a hand like 66 or QJs.

I can see that whatever your playing style is coldcalling the very first levels with small PPs is a good thing, maybe a rule like this can be limited for when stacks are becoming ~50bb or less.

Someone else that have tried something like this or have extremely little coldcalling in your tournament game?

This applies to Texas NL MTTs.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

This is kinda a good rule, except like you said PPs. Also, if someone opens for 3x in LP, LATE in a tourney when we both have 25bbs. I'm coldcalling wiht QQ+, AK there a lot of the time. Coldcalling hides your hand well.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

i'm really never coldcalling w/ 25bb vs a 3x open raise with AK, but then again i don't have any "rules" which makes me more versatile.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

People flat call too much. It is like limping and is passive play. In live tournaments, you will see a string of limpers or a string of flat callers.

Now in an ante game, if someone miniraises my BB, I am usually calling.

There are clearly times when flat calling is the best play, but there is nothing wrong with experimenting with always coming into the pot for a raise, particularly if it gets you out of calling or limping behind too much to see a flop.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

I have this problem, too, and I think everyone does to some extent. The OP's exercise of never coldcalling is one way to improve, and here are some others that I try to do every once in a while:

-make myself re-read TPFAP's "Gap Concept" chapter.

-play some limit hold'em.

-when I find myself in one of those situations with a middling hand, I tell myself that the average player would call here, and that folding is the difference between him and me. It's where some of my edge comes from.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

I coldcall agressive ppl all day long. I am very positive its +ev if you do it right.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

I agree that too many flat call opportunities exist, especially early in tourneys that are too +EV to pass up. If your not seeing flops with the sc's and small pp's cheap, there is a substantial leak in your tourney play. Small stakes nearly demands it as implied odds soar, getting paid off by top pair is a frequent occurrence.

Say your a the FT, you have 30bb's, unknown chip leader opens utg 3x, folds to you in bb, you pick up JJ, anything but flat calling here is weak/spew. Floating late in tourneys with the right stacks in play can be quite profitable as well, properly read and timed.

Too many opportunities exist not to put this in your arsenal in tourney play.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

Of course with any rule there are exceptions, but as a standard playing a more-or-less raise/fold game is very well-suited to the mid/late stages of a tournament, for the following reasons:

(1) Shallow stacks (i.e., <30+BB) drastically decrease your implied odds, so there are few situations where your hand will actually merit a cold-call.

(2) The Gap Concept makes reraising or folding much more appealing in most cases than cold-calling.

The exceptions to the rule show up only when stacks are relatively deep or when you have a very good handle on your opponent. For example, if you know your opponent is a nit who will only CB if he has TPTK or better and will check/fold everything else, then calling preflop in position is a great way to build your stack with little risk.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

You just have to be able to discriminate. For instance, say there is a player who likes to steal in CO/button preflop by raising to 2.5xBB. He does it so much and is still sufficiently deep that you know he will fold to your 3-bet. Great - so you open your 3-betting range, blah blah. Now, say that you have KK in the BB at ~20xBB. You also feel that he's itching to make some sort of post flop play and that you've been reasonably active on flops (as I suspect you would). I think it's a sin to 3-bet here.

Barry

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

Barry...I agree that we need to keep the flexibilty of a cold call in our arsenal...to your KK example...I really don't cold call KK OOP even vs an aggressive player...too hard to play it well post and too many boards will scare the oiriginal raiser IMO...is this a leak in my game? I will coldcall with AA but rarely with KK and QQ

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

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Barry...I agree that we need to keep the flexibilty of a cold call in our arsenal...to your KK example...I really don't cold call KK OOP even vs an aggressive player...too hard to play it well post and too many boards will scare the oiriginal raiser IMO...is this a leak in my game? I will coldcall with AA but rarely with KK and QQ

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Against a player who I know who is going to cont. bet, even when he only has 17BB's left after the hand (he may push) OR one who is strong preflop but gets spewy on flops, I like to flat call with KK in some spots. Against good TAGs, I almost always RR and against unknowns, the same.

Anyway, one thing that comes from this post is that flat calling is usually not great (I agree), but that very specific attention to detail, especially in LP situations, is key.

Barry

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

(Against Barry, we all flatcall pre and then check-minraise the flop, of course. That should go without saying.)

Most of you guys are talking about spots where it's call or raise, but I think the OP was focusing on spots where he should be folding. And I think he's absolutely right about that; with stacks of tourney depth, there's less room for outplaying than it may appear, and a big part of the real 'outplaying' is preflop hand selection, most notably knowledge of the Gap Concept.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

any more opinions on this?

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

People (especially newbs) generally call too much, and having a raise/fold mindset is an easy way of correcting many of the errors associated with this.

There are occasions when cold-calling is clearly the correct play though:

Playing drawing hands (esp in position, and multi-way) when deep-stacked

As mentioned as a way of disguising the strength of your hand.

When playing an ABC player who will fire one-barrel post-flop. If you think he's likely missed you can call his first barrel, and if he doesn't fire again take it away on the turn.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

In general, the only hands that should be Cold-calling a raise are hands that are too strong to fold (b/c they are a favorite against villains range, have too good of implied odds, etc.) but can't stand a 4-bet.

For example, if a player in MP makes is 4xBB and I have JJ on the button, I could re-raise, but assuming we are deep enough, what am I going to do if he shoves? The short answer is, I have no clue. We've put ourselves in a pretty bad spot. If we can't stand a 4-bet, just call PF.

The key though is to make sure the hand you are cold-calling with is actually ahead of villain's range PF (better than the middle most hand in his range).

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

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The key though is to make sure the hand you are cold-calling with is actually ahead of villain's range PF (better than the middle most hand in his range).

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I'm not sure what "middle most" means, Sherman.

Barry

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

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The key though is to make sure the hand you are cold-calling with is actually ahead of villain's range PF (better than the middle most hand in his range).

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I'm not sure what "middle most" means, Sherman.

Barry

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Well, the FTP Tournament Guide has a chapter by Andy Bloch on starting hands for NLHE tournaments. He takes a mathematical approach to the "Gap concept".

Here is a short version of his demonstration. Say rather than two cards you were dealt a number from zero to 100. Now let's say you know that a particular player in the CO is willing to raise with number 70+. You are on the button. Which numbers should you call with?

Obviously you aren't calling with anything below 70. But should you call with 71? The answer is also no. While you do win if he has 70, you lose the rest of the time.

So you need to be better than his "average" (or middle) hand, which in this case is 85. So you need to have an 85 or better to call this player in this spot.

So applying that to poker, you need to have a hand that is better than your opponents "average" opening hand to profitably call PF. Make sense?

Sherman

Edit: To point out there are considerations in actually poker hands as well. Obviously if the PF pot is huge, you don't have to beat at least his "average" hand. But if there were no antes or blinds, you would need to beat his average hand to be profitable. As blinds and antes become larger, you may not need to beat his average hand to make calling profitable.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

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The key though is to make sure the hand you are cold-calling with is actually ahead of villain's range PF (better than the middle most hand in his range).

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I'm not sure what "middle most" means, Sherman.

Barry

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Lets say villain is opening top 10%. To be ahead of the "middle most" you'd want to be playing top 5%, since then every hand you are playing is better than more than half of villains range. If villain is raising top 10%, half the time he has a top 5% hand, and half the time the hand is 6%-10%. If you call with a hand from the 6%-10% range, you have a hand worse than his more than half the time, so you're calling while behind most of the time. Obviously there's like a gazillion other factors to calling besides that, but it's something to take note of. The key is that you have a hand, and villain has a range of hands, and you want your hand to be in the top half of villain's range in order to have the best hand the majority of the time. I think some people (not you, but I've seen it from others) who think villain is raising top 10%, and I have a top 10% hand, so I should play, and this is totally incorrect. You don't have a top 10% hand, you just have a hand (whatever it is) and you need it to compare favorably to villain's range, not simply be in it.

Like I said before, unless the guy shoves there are like a zillion other factors that come into play. This analysis would only come into play absolutely if there were no pot to begin with and villain was shoving. Then you would be getting no monetary odds and would simply rely on hand strength v. villain's range to make the decision. Also, some hands in the top 5% obviously play differently against villain's range than others (like 99 and AQ are going to have different winning chances, although they are both near the bottom of top 5%.) However, this does not make the concept useless. Like if someone is shoving AT+ KQ and 66+ you need almost 3:2 pot odds to call with AJ, even though AJ is better than some hands in villain's range. Anyway, I've rambled way too long, I hope there is something useful in this post, because I'm starting to think there isn't.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

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(Against Barry, we all flatcall pre and then check-minraise the flop, of course. That should go without saying.)

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lmfao...

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

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I coldcall agressive ppl all day long. I am very positive its +ev if you do it right.

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There's something to that. In the FTP strat book Gavin Smith says he practically never reraises, but instead will often coldcall with any 2 cards. His logic was that by reraising, the villian is likely to feel you're showing him up and is more compelled to outplay you for spite + the bigger pot than if you simply call and bet the flop... he'll usually miss it, and can then say "ok you got lucky, I can let this go and get you next time". Seems to work for him. Guess you just have to be very willing to fire 2-3 bullets here and there to make it work.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

Just require a lot more money behind to be playing for set value or playing suited connectors real deep when you are deciding whether or not to coldcall. I look for like 45 bb's deep before I start making speculative calls and that doesn't come up that often in online play.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

My response is to never say never...

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

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Just require a lot more money behind to be playing for set value or playing suited connectors real deep when you are deciding whether or not to coldcall. I look for like 45 bb's deep before I start making speculative calls and that doesn't come up that often in online play.

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gobbo, do you have any more thoughts about this even if it might be boring "theory"? I like your posts and like to hear some exceptions ideas of when you coldcall except for the example you said. for ex slowplaying a big hand late in the tourney etc. do you often call raises with a hand like KQ or AJ late in a tournament?

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

its how Jesus won the ME

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

you cannot be a successful tournament player without having all tools in your arsenal. One of the biggest problems with this theory as others have touched on is it allows villian to play perfectly too often. Say we have 27k and villian covers, blinds are 4/800 and villian is aggro lag. He opens for 2200 from the HJ and we are button with AJs. Unless his four betting range is really wide, then just calling and playing well post flop is going to be way more +EV then reraising or shoving, because our hand is way ahead of his opening range but probably way behind his 4betting range.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

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Say we have 27k and villian covers, blinds are 4/800 and villian is aggro lag. He opens for 2200 from the HJ and we are button with AJs. Unless his four betting range is really wide, then just calling and playing well post flop is going to be way more +EV then reraising or shoving, because our hand is way ahead of his opening range but probably way behind his 4betting range.

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that example is a good example of a spot where I often tend to just call for the reasons you stated, but think that is better to 3-bet or fold (leaning towards folding is in doubt). one big reason for this is that a CO-raise and a button-call is a very good spot for one of the blinds to squeeze. However, I think calling in this spot with a huge hand, esp. if the blinds are squeezy is a good play some of the time.

Re: Never coldcall rule (theorish)
 

any more opinions? esp on my last post.