Cold Calling - Why is it bad?

[Thirdman]

Hi,

I've read in several books that cold calling - that is calling a raise preflop when you have not previously called is a bad thing to do. I'm not sure I totally understand why this is bad practice. Can the experts out there explain this please.

[The Bandit Fish]

Well I'm probably wrong, but it's probably something along the lines of: If your hand is good enough to cold call, it should be good enough to raise with.

Also a raise in early position generally shows strength, so unless you're very sure of your hand you probably don't want to be just calling behind them.

The being said people at lower levels (I only have experience up to 1/2 NL, so take this with a grain of salt) tend to play strangely. I wouldn't recommend cold calling unless you have a monster or know the villain likes to raise in EP with crap.

I'm sure someone with more experience can chime in with much better advice than I'm capable of giving.

[PantsOnFire]

I'm no expert but here are some reasons I can think of:

1. Any time you call, you have 0% chance of winning the pot outright. Thus, calling is a passive action whether its cold calling, limping or calling a flop bet.

2. Cold-calling keeps control of the hand to the raiser. If you re-raise, you take control of a hand and have much more fold equity and credibility for your actions on the flop.

3. If you figure you have a better hand than the raiser, but call anyways, this is not cold-calling but smooth-calling and is a deceptive play. Cold-calling is done with an hand equal or inferior to the raiser's range and thus you simply hoping to get lucky and catch up.

4. When you cold-call, you give players behind you better odds to call so you will usually end up with more competition. A re-raise will cause more folds behind you and a better chance that you will play heads-up with the raiser or even win the pot uncontested.

5. The EV of cold-calling depends a lot on your hand. Cold-calling with a small pocket pair isn't as bad if you expect callers behind you and no raises. Cold-calling with a hand like AJ or KQ is much worse and may get you into trouble.

6. Keep in mind that cold-calling usually refers to the first player to call a raise. After that it is called an overcall which can be bad as well be not nearly as bad as the cold call.

7. Also, I don't believe cold-calling is as bad against a LAG habitual raiser but this is solely due to the Gap Concept. However, again you should be re-raising this LAG player a lot and not always cold-calling him.

[sk8ram]

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.

[eMbAh]

calling is not bad if you have position [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[DGDolly]

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.

For example, if you hold a small/meidum PP, or a suited connector, and you believe your opponent has a big pair, hitting a set when all undercards come or hitting trips/strait/flush means you can almost always stack your villain unless you are very deep.

In fact, if you are very deep in a cash game, this type of play can be even better, since you have higher "implied odds".

On the other hand, if you miss your hand, or just hit top pair with your SC, then give up, and lose the minimum.

[Greg Miller]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[Jetto]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[AngusThermopyle]

[ QUOTE ]

I've read in several books that cold calling - that is calling a raise preflop when you have not previously called is a bad thing to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Books on Limit Holdem?

[Harv72b]

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).