Cold Calling: Part II

Whether you play poker in brick and mortar venues or online, whether you play cash games or tournaments you face a never-ending series of decisions. Most good players have certain plays that they generally make. Knowing in advance what you will do in a certain situation simplifies playing many hands and allows you to save your mental effort for more unusual situations. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you play 12 hours in a tournament or multi-table in a cash game, playing some hands on autopilot becomes a necessity. These automatic plays are often referred to as default plays. This means that they are the normal play you make in this situation, unless there are some special, unusual considerations.

For example, you are in the middle of a major tournament and pick up 7-2 offsuit in the cutoff. Everyone folds to you. Your default play is to fold. This should be an automatic play for you nearly every time this situation occurs. Now let’s suppose you are near the bubble and the button and the blinds have been playing very conservatively. They want to get into the money. You are aware of this and ‘overrule’ your default play. You raise, attempting to steal the antes and blinds.

Now moving on to the topic of this column—cold calling. A cold call is a call of one or more raises when you have no money invested in the pot. A standard rule is that you need a better hand to cold call a raise than you do to raise yourself. This is especially true in limit games, where no miracle will allow you to win your opponent’s stack. Let’s see why this rule holds true. Let’s say you raise in the second seat, under the gun plus one, with high pairs A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, and 10-10, as well as with A-K and A-Q. If the player under the gun folds and you pick up A-Q suited, you are happy to raise. Let’s say the under the gun player has the same raising range, and he raises ahead of you. How do you feel about A-Q suited now? Do you want to cold call his raise? I hope your answer was no. Look at the cases involved. You are being crushed by A-A, K-K, Q-Q, and A-K. You are a moderate underdog to J-J and 10-10. The only time you are the favorite is if he has A-Q offsuit. In this case, it is only a tiny favorite since most pots will be split. Study this situation closely. If you like fooling around with poker software, compute your chance of winning. No matter how you analyze the situation, your normal first-in raising hand became an automatic fold. In reality, the situation is even worse than you might think. Let’s say you cold call. Any one of the remaining seven players may three-bet. If you were in the big blind, and everyone else had folded to the raise, a call would be reasonable. This is not a cold call since you already have your blind money in the pot. It is also less dangerous since your call ends the preflop action.

The situation is even more dangerous when there is a raise and a three-bet in front of you. The first raiser claims he has a hand worth raising. The second raiser is stating that his hand is significantly better than the range of hands that first raiser might hold. Twenty years ago, you needed aces or kings to call in this spot, and you might even be hesitant to call with kings. Modern players are much more active and have much wider ranges, so your hand doesn’t need to quite that good, but it certainly better be pretty good. Remember, if you call this raise and three-bet, anyone behind you can raise again. It is not uncommon for the initial raiser to four-bet or shove when the action gets back to him.

Which brings me back to my opening section on default plays. When there is a raise and a three-bet in front of you, fold. This is your automatic play. Obviously, if you have some monster, you can call or four-bet, but in general, fold. Even if there is only one raise in front of you, your normal play will be to fold. These defaults will save you mental energy and guide you in the right direction in most cases. You’ll know when your hand is strong enough to call. In deep stack no-limit, you can call a single raise with a fairly wide range of hands that might win the raiser’s entire stack. These are usually pairs and suited connectors. Notice I said you can call, not you must call. It is seldom a mistake to fold a hand like 3-3 or 7-6 suited when you act after an early position raiser. There is too much danger that someone behind will three-bet.

In summary: In limit poker, your default play is never to cold call a three-bet and seldom cold call a single raise. In no-limit or big bet poker, you should have the same defaults, but be a little more liberal in finding exceptions. The exceptions should be hands that might win the raiser’s entire stack. Even in those cases, you proceed with caution when there are potential reraisers to act after your cold call. ♠

Steve ‘Zee’ Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful gamesplayer. He has been a full-time gambler for over 35 years. With two WSOP bracelets and few million in tournament cashes, he is easing into retirement. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at some major tournaments and playing in cash games in Vegas. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A in New York City -The Library near Houston and Doc Holliday’s on 9th St. are his favorites.