Cold Calling Raises with Marginal Hands
One of the biggest mistakes in limit poker is cold calling raises before the flop with marginal hands. "Cold calling" refers to the action of calling two or more bets after one or more players have raised the pot before it is your turn to act. Since a raise indicates a strong hand for the raiser, there are very few hands for which calling is profitable. For example, cold calling with KQo against a reasonable raiser is a terrible play, since it's very likely that our hand is dominated: the probability that the raiser has AK, AQ, AA, KK, or QQ is high. Even if we get lucky and the raiser has JJ, TT, 99, or 88, we are at best a 7% underdog. Even if we have reason to believe that the raiser will raise with hands like QJ or worse, we can't be sure that he's not holding AK when we flop a King.
In loose games, the implied odds often justify cold calling raises with non-powerhouse hands. In games where many players are taking a flop, pocket pairs, suited connectors, and suited aces can profitably cold call a raise. We'll leave the math to you, but these types of hands will win more than their fair share in pots with many players in a "no fold-em" type game.
Thus, the only hands that we should be cold-calling raises with are small pocket pairs and suited one or two-gappers in games where we are relatively sure we will get high implied odds on our cold call. The only offsuit hand that we can profitably cold-call one or more raises with is AK, and we are often better off raising with big slick instead.
Poker Tracker allows us to easily determine if we are cold calling raises too often before the flop: a. Above the "Known starting hands" pane, click the "filters" button
Cenerdl [n(o. | Session Notes | Game Notes ] Position Stats | Misc. Stats | S
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General Description:
Site; [pííty fe Affiliates I- Do Not Auto-Rate TMs Player urnmary | Game Time | Preferences |
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More Detail..
PI Player Summary: Click on any column heading to sort the data - this works on all data sections
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PI Player Summary: Click on any column heading to sort the data - this works on all data sections
|
Gime Level |
Í In The Pot |
yol. Put i In From SB |
Folded SB Tç steal |
Folded BBTq Steal |
Steel W£F Blinds % |
Amount won |
At SD % |
Baise % |
Total Flake |
il | ||||
|
(15/Í30 |
436 |
22,94 |
35.85 |
50, DQ |
57.14 |
24.30 |
33.93 |
$664.00 |
5.06 |
32,14 |
58.33 |
8.03 |
105.00 | |
|
Í10/Í20 |
302 19,54 28.57 100,DO 50.00 0.00 |
32,88 |
$ 149.00 2.47 |
24,66 44.44 2.9S 65.00 | ||||||||||
|
tl0/$20 |
213 32.39 43.90 04,62 33.33 33.33 -10,00 |
<»64.50)1 (1.51) |
37,6S 46.88 12.Í6 1 .7.00 | |||||||||||
|
16 Levels |
39,312 23.46 35.H 82 91 53.09 19.63 26,12 |
$2*490,14 2.S6 |
2ftAii 54.44 5.42 2f?25,60 | |||||||||||
|
JjJ |
Tur.-i Filter Oíñ | |
Filters... | ||||||||||
|
1 Hsnd |
Tiveí ™in |
Met Avg/Hand BB/Hand ' Blind 1 |
CCPF |
i/PjíP |
wtwsr |
PFR % RFI % L.wPC |
WtSD |
wtsD M | ||||
|
AA |
143 70.95 |
1,700.7! |
11 55 |
3.02 |
37 |
7 |
100-00 |
69-29 |
S4-46 22-30 |
0.63 |
75,71 |
64-15S |
|
AKs |
126 4gSl |
240.00 |
1,90 |
111 |
31 |
20 |
97.62 |
45-S3 |
72-22 23-31 6.35 |
49.17 |
62-71 | |
|
AKq |
3® 39.62 |
65S-S5 |
210 |
050 |
S3 |
24 |
97.44 |
36-49 |
61-02 19-49 |
14 73 |
36.15 |
52-34 |
|
AQs |
125 47.20 |
255-25 |
2.04 |
0,73 |
36 |
12 |
96-00 |
44 .S3 |
56-SO 17.60 |
S-6Í |
39 66 |
67.39 |
|
AQo |
370 3514 |
2? 7-30 |
0.64 |
0.42 |
_95 |
23 |
94.59 |
33-33 |
50-00 20-54 |
IS. 11 |
32 45 |
31.83 |
|
AJi 1 |
135 35.56 |
107.20 |
1.39 |
0.06 |
36 |
rJ¡ |
94.81 |
32.00 |
37.76 14.S1 |
31.05 |
34 40 |
44.19 |
|
Totals |
39,312 8.53 |
2,490.14 0,05 |
o.os] |
9j808 |
424 |
23.46 |
26.12 |
5,42 2 41 |
10,51 |
26,46 | ||
b. In the Vol. Put $ in Pot section, click "cold called" to view only the hands you called two bets cold before the flop
Known Hand? Filiar
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QeJeteffiterr
Type of Hole Cards r Off-Suited
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Select Specific Hands,.. No specific hands selected
Off-Suited Connector f Pairs I- Suited
I- Suited Connectors
Hands With Between: T] ÄND |lù Players. At The Table Hands With Between: |5 3 and 110 zl Players Seeing The Floe
Ppiitipns Off Ths Èuttpn: I Mars Than Or Equal To [û T] AND | J»] (0 = The Button)
Blind Status P Doesn't Matter r Big Blind r Small Blind C Either Blind r Not A Blind
Vol, Put $ In Pot P Doesn't Matter <~ Put Money In P Cold Called C Limped m/ PC C No Money In
Money Tn or SFfrom BB (free)
Pre-flop Raise P Doesnt Matter r Any Raise r Raised First In Limp/Re-raise No Raise
Pre-flop Raise - Action On Flop 1 I"* There Was No Flop
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