May 12, 2006
How Could You Call That?!?!
by Luckbox
How many times have you been asked that question? How many times have you seen it asked at the table? And how many times have you asked that yourself?
Here's the outrage:
I've put out a strong raise pre-flop, made a strong continuation bet after the flop and pushed all in on the turn. I must have a pretty good hand, right? Well, I don't. I was bluffing. At best, I have a draw. But you can't know that, right? And when you click call and flip over top pair, top kicker, it's time for me to ask the question.
I think I'm getting tired of hearing it. Isn't it just a little bit possible that I've developed a betting pattern that easy to spot. Isn't it possible that that particular opponent knows that I play my strong hands soft and my weak hands strong?
I'm seeing a growing trend of people who are personally offended when their opponent reads them correctly. It doesn't matter if your opponent was ahead when all the money went into the pot, it's that there's NO WAY he could honestly believe he was ahead, so it must have been a bad call on his part.
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but one of the first things I had to do to grow as a player was to stop assuming my opponent held monsters every time they bet like they did. Just as they're reading you, you have to read them, and trust those reads. Sometimes they'll be wrong and sometimes you'll be wrong.
Bottom line: I have a hard time believing it's ever a bad call if the person making the call is ahead when the money goes into the pot. Just because you're representing more than you have doesn't mean I have to believe it.
Alright this is a bluff. No way CJ wrote that post. The luckbox putting money in ahead? I just don't believe it ;-)
Right ;-)
Here's the thing, though... I don't call many all-ins if I can help it. I'll make lots of bad pushes knowing I'm going to suck out on you... but I try to avoid calling and sucking out. ;-)
Goddamn biggestron beat me to it.
I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with the "How could you call THAT?" line of thinking, if you've arrived there via reasonable play. Lots of times when you correctly apply pressure and they find a way to call, with a hand that's at best slightly ahead but almost never is, and it turns out to be slightly ahead and holds up and you're left muttering the above.
Where I think people go astray (and what I think you're getting at) is when they get entangled in a hand they never should have been in to begin with by maing too loose a pre-flop call, manage to get lucky and flop a big draw, and quickly get their chips in as a slight dog, when they're called by someone with middle pair. Then one of two things happens:
1) They miss their draw and belittle the donkey that dared to call with such a crappy hand.
2) They hit their draw and belittle the donkey that dared to call with such a crappy hand.
The disappointing thing is that pretty much at no point is the real root of the problem addressed, as far as why they're getting themselves into such positions to begin with. If you're that much better than the donkey then surely to Jebus you can find a better spot than to get all your chips in when, at best, you're a slight dog.
When is it a good call and when is it a player in love with TPTK? Who knows? Only the player themselves can know.. In a lowerstakes game is it more the second than the first? Do you play stakes where it is more the first than the second? Possibly. Poker is an interesting game.
"When is it a good call and when is it a player in love with TPTK? Who knows?"
That's sorta my point. If we don't know, aren't being just a little bit arrogant to assume they made a bad call instead of believing they made a correct read?
I'm sure there are a lot of people who play low stakes NL that call a big re-rasie with their middle pair and never once give consideration to what the other player might have.
Say a player has 99 and the flop comes 2-3-4. Suddenly that 99 looks just like AA and the monkey pushes without regard to any possible hand the opponent may have. Hmmmm all low cards I got this pot PUSH.
I'm fairly certain this line of thinking is more common than that of a player actually trying to think what his 99 is up against.
Again we're talking lower limits.
