Calling stations

	While the blinds suffer the disadvantage of acting first, they have the advantage of playing hands that are completely disguised

So much as been said and written about the need for selective and aggressive poker that many players go to the extreme of refusing to enter a pot in a no-limit tournament or a cash game unless they can come in raising. These players simply don’t want to call.

Aggressive play is winning play because much of the time opponents choose not to call a raised pot, particularly in a tournament, when entering a pot can consume a large portion of their chips. That gives aggressive players two ways to win, while the passive player who calls but seldom raises can only win by showing down the best hand. Aggressive play also often means an opponent will fold a hand that might improve on a subsequent betting round and eventually capture the pot. But passive play removes that opportunity from a player’s options.

Folding takes a player out of situations where he is unsure about how his hand stacks up against an opponent. He is therefore likely to win the minimum if he has the best hand, but lose the maximum if he happens to be up against an opponent who has a powerful hand and can bet or raise with impunity. Raising, on the other hand, always has the advantage of putting your opponent to the test, and this is the question he’ll have to answer: Does my opponent have a better hand? Any time you can force your opponent to make a decision, there’s a chance he’ll choose incorrectly. This allows an aggressive player to win both when his opponent folds a slightly better hand and when he holds the best hand too.

If you’re going to have a default mechanism built into your poker programming, instead of tending to call, let it be this: Raise more than you call, and fold more than you raise. But sometimes the situation demands a different strategy, and there are times when calling is the best course of action. Let’s examine these situations one by one in more depth.

Buying a card to complete a draw

When you have a draw and you’re sure you’ll win if you complete your hand, it’s okay to raise against a large field of callers. Raising is also a good idea whenever you think that a raise might win the pot right now, regardless of whether you complete your hand.

But when you have only a few callers, and you’re sure that your raise will not cause any players to fold, calling is a better option than folding or raising. In fact, if you were to raise, it might reopen the betting and subject you to a large raise from a player in early position. His raise might even price you off your draw and force you to release your hand.

But when your call will close the betting on that round, or stand a good chance of closing the betting because you are near the end of the line in the betting order, calling keeps you in the hand and allows you to see another card. This is the best course of action whenever you believe that raising won’t allow you to win the pot right now and might even bring you face-to-face with a big re-raise that you really shouldn’t call.

There’s nothing mysterious here. Draws are always a high-wire act. At one extreme is the opportunity to bet big and cause your opponents to fold. On the other end of the spectrum is an opportunity to complete your hand on the cheap, and then trap your opponents for a big bet or two when you have the best of it. Calling allows you to get to this point with the minimum investment in your hand.

Deceiving your opponent

Every now and then you’ll flop a hand that’s a monster, and none of your opponents will suspect you of having anything. When that’s the case, a little deception can lead to a big win, especially if you are playing against very aggressive opponents. I remember one time I was playing in a no-limit tournament and had A;-9; in the big blind. The pot was raised to three times the big blind and there were four callers, so I paid the equivalent of two additional big blinds to look at the flop against a large field. To my surprise, the flop was 9-9-Q of three different suits. I was as sure as could be that I had the best hand and that there were no obvious draws that could beat me.

The hand was checked to the raiser, who made a continuation bet of half the pot. He was called by a player to my right and then it was my turn. I could have raised and won the pot right there, but I wanted to lure those behind me into the fray and give the player who was driving the hand a chance to bet again on the turn. My call had a daisy-chain effect that brought in the two players behind me.

The turn card was a trey. The initial raiser bet out again. The player to my right folded, and I raised about threequarters the size of the pot, which dropped the remaining callers. I felt they would fold to any bet, because the trey that fell on the turn provided neither help nor hope to anyone who was sticking around for one more card.

The river card was also a blank and my opponent checked. I bet enough to put him all-in and he folded. I would have liked to have taken all his chips, but that wasn’t to be. Nevertheless, by calling instead of raising on the flop, I put myself in a position to win far more chips than I would have if I had shown my true strength too early on in the hand.

Buying an inexpensive card

Calling is usually a better idea than raising if you want to buy an inexpensive card. Maybe you’re hoping to catch a card that will pair your kicker and propel you from one pair to two pair – a hand you can use to seize control of the action and bet or check-raise the turn. Even if you don’t pair your kicker, you might see a turn card that looks benign enough to convince you that your hand is the best one at that point. In these situations the choice of tactics is often a judgment call. If you don’t think that raising will force your opponent to fold, calling is often a better choice.

Calling from the blind

Calling from the blind is usually a good decision when you don’t have a hand that is strong enough to justify a re-raise. While the blinds suffer the disadvantage of having to act first on each succeeding betting round, they do have the advantage of playing hands that are completely disguised.

Since the blinds are random hands, a player in that position could have just about anything. Most blind hands may be quickly tossed away as soon as someone bets or raises, but don’t forget that the blinds are also dealt their share of pocket Aces and Kings too. Sometimes they’ll even flop sets with small pocket pairs and, when they do, they’ll make a huge hand that’s totally invisible to their opponents – at least, until they pull the trigger on a subsequent betting round.

Having to act first in the blinds is a big disadvantage. The only compensating edge is the option to raise on the first betting round or to check a big hand and see the flop with a well-disguised holding that other players won’t suspect until it costs them a few chips.

Calling with big hands

This really is a special case of deceiving your opponent. When you have a really big hand, your concern is not whether you’ll win the pot, but how much money you’ll win. Your job is twofold: you want to convince your opponent that he has the best hand, which is often as easy as giving him a free or inexpensive card in the hope that he’ll improve enough to get into trouble. Then you have to extract the maximum amount you can from him. Because calling doesn’t reveal the strength of your hand in the same way that a raise does, your call helps lead your opponent down that primrose path.

Isn’t that a great feeling? You’ve got a huge hand, yet your opponent is convinced his is the winner. When that happens, he’ll do the betting for you, at least until you lower the boom later on in that hand, when you hope he is so committed to the pot that you will wind up taking his entire stack.

While betting and raising is still the hallmark of winning poker, don’t ignore the subtle benefits of quietly calling. When you want to give your opponents enough rope to hang themselves, or see another card or two at a bargain price, it can reap big rewards.