Calling on the river

Originally posted by DodoBrabbel
I have the feeling that I fold too much on the river. From my hands so far I gathered some information, maybe you can provide insight on how accurate my assesment is for NL5?

• Passive player betting 20%-60% of the pot is overpair or better.
• Passive player betting 60% of the pot or more is straight or better. No surprise here.
• Aggressive player betting 20%-60% of the pot is a wide range, but around 1/4 is a weak pair or worse.
• Aggressive player betting 60%-99% of the pot has some strong hands, but also around 2/3 highcards, especially on dry boards. This one surprised me, is it really that much?
• Against an overbet on a wet board a set is basically a bluffcatcher.

My takeaway is that I need to be much more aware of opponents that may bluff the river, and snap them off with 2nd pair. Maniacs are obvious candidates to bluffcatch. But what about TAGs, when do you bluffcatch against them?

Only when you have a better hand than they do
(sorry, I couldn't resist)

Do you have PokerTracker or Hold'em Manager?
Both of those tools have a stat called "River Call Efficiency"

The stat description is:
Ratio of the total amount won on the river to the total amount called on the river. Money that is taken out of the pot as rake is not counted as money won.

Formula: Amount of Game Currency Called on the River and Won / Amount of Game Currency Called on the River

So if you win 100 bucks OTR when you called $50 your RcE would be 2
If you're losing, the RcE would be less than 1.

I don't know how this stat applies to times when you raise the river.
Since this stat isn't affected when you fold, there is more work to do.

If your RcE is much greater than 2, it would indicate that you're missing value though.

If you do have PT4 the leakbuster tool might give you some ideas also.

BTW, I think that your list is generally correct -- but a very good player can exploit this by representing hands by their bet sizes.
And of course, an extremely good player will use a wide variety of bet sizes for the same hand range

Only when you have a better hand than they do
(sorry, I couldn't resist)

Wow this makes it so much easier

My river call efficiency is between 1.58 and 2.69 depending on position, so that seems fine then? I suppose I can keep an eye out whether it changes when I try to bluffcatch for a while. Is there a value to aim for?

I guess that when you have a history with an opponent it becomes more clear how often they tend to bluff, and whether they adapt. Extremely good players are probably not on NL5, but good to keep in mind for higher stakes (if I ever manage to reach those :f_tongue:)