Hi there,
I was thinking abouth this at work today. What can we tell abouth players who cold call our raises preflop? On what hand can we put those players for instance? What information do they give us wenn they cold call a hand? Both seeing as if they were tight-aggressive or loose?
Hi Wilm,
of course in general this depends on the VPIP. In most cases a cold call is a hand which you should fold but they don't want to fold it because they have a hand they would like to play but is to weak for a 3bet.
So most of the times, small to medium pocket pairs and the bigger suited connectors kike KQs or QJs. Sometimes also weaker aces.
The looser somebody is, the more he will go down in terms of requirements for a cold call.
Best regards,
Stefan
I would go another step and ask how many other players have called or will be likely to call the raise. If it goes, limp, limp, limp, raise, and I'm on the button, well my requirements might loosen up a bit since I know the three limpers are coming along for one more bet and the BB might jump in there too getting 8.5:1 (and if he makes the same assumption I'm making, he's getting 11.5:1). Plus the implied odds are huge if you hit a flop with a strong draw.
With those kind of odds, any decent cards are worth playing.
Also, I might also look at the game itself. Is this a table where if I'm in MP and I cold call an EP raise, do the players to my left cold call raises pretty often? Now, you won't see those types of games too often at higher limits but plenty of low limit tables have a lot of passive types who have high VP$IP's and will call raises just to see a flop hoping to get lucky.
Of course you are right. In general it is hard to answer such questions because you can always create a special situation where something else is true.
But i think that it is a good hint for everybody when you talk about "hand reading" if someone calls cold you can put him on big (suited) connectors or a medium pocket pair. Of course when a 70VPIP guy calls cold - calculating his hand range beomces much harder and of course in multiway pots everything is possible even for a TAG.
Best regards,
Stefan
