Cold Calling - Why is it bad?

[Thirdman]

Yes I am just talking about Limit Hold'Em.

There are some interesting points here. They all seem to stem from the concept that even preflop you act in a manner where you think that you have the best hand. I always thought that preflop was too early to decide if you have the best hand, sure you can determine if you have a strong pair of starting cards but it is only until after the flop where you can determine it you have any serious chance of winning the pot. The way I have often played is to limp preflop then fold on the flop if I decide its not worth continuing.

[lucky_mf]

There is nothing wrong with cold calling as long as you don't a lot. If you play 20/15 (VP$IP/PFR) you are cold calling in %5 of the preflop situations - nothing wrong with this. If you are playing 25/5 you are cold calling in 20% of the preflop situations. In this later situation you are going to have to win a bunch of $ in the pots that other players are opening to turn a profit. I've seen people do it, but it isn't the easiest way to win.

Lucky

[AngusThermopyle]

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There is nothing wrong with cold calling as long as you don't a lot. If you play 20/15 (VP$IP/PFR) you are cold calling in %5 of the preflop situations - nothing wrong with this. If you are playing 25/5 you are cold calling in 20% of the preflop situations. In this later situation you are going to have to win a bunch of $ in the pots that other players are opening to turn a profit. I've seen people do it, but it isn't the easiest way to win.

Lucky

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Your definition of "cold calling" is not the one under discussion.
"cold call" : call a raise with nothing yet invested.

[numbnuts007]

One of the big problems with cold calling in limit hold'em is the risk of domination. Against a typical raiser, if you have a hand that is good but not good enough to 3-bet, the risk of domination is too high.

If you have KJs on the button (a hand normally worth a raise, one player limps, another raises and it is to you, the risk of domination is tremendous. If this is a typical raiser (not an isolation play or a loose raiser), you are probably in bad shape. AK, AJ, KQ, KK, and JJ all have you dominated. Not to mention AA, QQ, or TT or lower. What other hands could he be raising with? AQ, ATs? you're an underdog to them too. You're crushed by most of his range and the likely best case scenerio is that you're only a slight underdog. In some cases you're a favorite, but not too many, QJs and KTs is about it and many players don't raise with these in middle position.

You're better off just waiting for a hand that you can 3-bet and take the betting lead. Even AJs and KQs are okay, but that's only because their suitedness saves you some of the times that you're dominated.

[pzhon]

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Cold-calling in limit hold'em is generally very bad.

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I'd say it is a mistake, and it usually indicates a conceptual error, but it is often not large in magnitude.

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In the context of a single hand you are correct. The problem is that, like many other preflop mistakes in LHE, it's a mistake that a lot of players make repeatedly over the course of a session or their entire poker "careers". This turns it into a major leak in their play.

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Excellent point. I agree that the habit of cold-calling is very expensive.

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The number I've seen in print a few times is that you'll generally run into correct situations to coldcall about 1% of the time in online or reasonably aggressive live games.


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Yes, although I think that assumes the PFR is fairly tight, and you are the first cold-caller, so the AJs, AQs, and KQs hands mentioned (in HPFAP?) are the only cold-calling hands.

After a couple of other people call two bets, you can profitably call two cold with more suited and speculative hands.

[Jetto]

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Cold calling isn't always a bad play. For example when playing small pocket pairs and connectors etc, but generally for beginners a cold call is not good.

This is essentially to do with the gap concept, which means that you need a much stronger hand to cold call a raise than you do to make one.

Example, 6 handed table, equal stacks
UTG raises 4xBB.
You're in the BB after everyone folds with aj os.

Most players, including myself, would find a fold here quite easily barring reads, because the raise indicates a strong hand and you don't know where you stand just by calling. This leads to trouble on the flop. Of course raising is an option but aj os isn't really strong enough to do that.

However, lets say you have the same aj os in the CO and UTG and UTG + 1 fold to you. This is a solid play to raise, because no one has indicated any strength and you're likely to be ahead of the blinds and buttons hands.

I hope this helps a little.

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i liked that post and I think I learned something new today..good stuff man,...I should read TOP more

[Greg Miller]

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If you don't do it often, cold calling a raise can be very profitable if you can get away from your hand on the flop when you don't hit it.

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No, the hard part is getting away from your hand when you *do* hit it. If you cold-call with KQ and hit TP, are you ahead, or are you crushed? You pretty much have to pay the preflop raiser off now. If you cold-call with AK, why didn't you reraise? You're either dominating or a slight underdog unless your opponent has AA or KK (unlikely when you have one A and one K accounted for). All of this assumes limit, since that's normally where the advice against cold-calling comes from.

[Matt Williams]

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If you don't do it often, cold calling a raise can be very profitable if you can get away from your hand on the flop when you don't hit it.

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No, the hard part is getting away from your hand when you *do* hit it. If you cold-call with KQ and hit TP, are you ahead, or are you crushed? You pretty much have to pay the preflop raiser off now. If you cold-call with AK, why didn't you reraise? You're either dominating or a slight underdog unless your opponent has AA or KK (unlikely when you have one A and one K accounted for). All of this assumes limit, since that's normally where the advice against cold-calling comes from.

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Why would you cold-call with AK? Only passive players cold-call AK. Those type of players are limping in w/ AK anyway. So if one limped in front of you w/ it, and you raised w/ AQ, you are dominated and would never know it. And if they called after your raise, you wouldn't know that either. But if you know that you SHOULDN'T cold-call, you would never do it w/ AK.

[govman6767]

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Cold-calling in limit hold'em is generally very bad. This is because either you have a worse hand than the raiser (and therefore do not have the proper pot odds to play your hand) or you have a better hand than the raiser (and therefore should be trying to get it heads up by re-raising). There are times when a coldcall is correct, usually in cases where the table is playing very loose and passive and/or several other players have coldcalled before you; in those cases coldcalling would be just fine with hands like small or mid pocket pairs or suited broadway cards, sometimes with smaller suited connectors as well. The reasoning being that while you may not have the immediate pot odds required to make your call, you are likely to win enough in implied odds (bets won on later streets) to make up for that when you flop big.

In no limit hold'em, flat calling a preflop raise is much more acceptable. The short version of why is that you can expect to win considerably more after the flop when you hit a big hand (or in some cases if you slowplay your big hand preflop).

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If your playing in WA odds are cold calling a rais preflop is VERY profitable as usually 10 people will be seeing that raise and a flop that's 64 bucks in the pot before the flop
your getting like 9 or 10 to 1 on your money

[Greg Miller]

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If you don't do it often, cold calling a raise can be very profitable if you can get away from your hand on the flop when you don't hit it.

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No, the hard part is getting away from your hand when you *do* hit it. If you cold-call with KQ and hit TP, are you ahead, or are you crushed? You pretty much have to pay the preflop raiser off now. If you cold-call with AK, why didn't you reraise? You're either dominating or a slight underdog unless your opponent has AA or KK (unlikely when you have one A and one K accounted for). All of this assumes limit, since that's normally where the advice against cold-calling comes from.

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Why would you cold-call with AK?

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Do you often reply by asking the same question as the person to whom you replied?