Never coldcall rule (theorish)

[Hattifnatt]

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.

[Dave D]

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.

[hERESY]

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.

[betgo]

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.

[Kimbell175113]

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.

[hasuuser]

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

[ChipSpeak]

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.

[Proofrock]

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.

[BarryLyndon]

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

[ssnyc]

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