[Dunkman]

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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.