"Hero" Calling

I am sure you have all heard of the term hero calling. It means calling in a spot where we have a very poor hand that can only beat a bluff. In today's aggressive games there is probably more spots to hero call than a decade ago. So how do we know when we should be hero calling and when we should we fold?

Well right off the bat I am going to tell you that I hate the term hero calling, I only use it in this blog as it is term every poker player understands. However, it suggests that by making the call you are being a hero, making some brave move against all the odds. Well if you are hero calling correctly then you aren't a hero at all. You will be nothing more than a cool calculator, because you will have made the decision to call based on the odds given to you and weighed that up against the chance that you are actually ahead (i.e. that your opponent is bluffing). If you are calling to be a hero without thought to the odds etc. then you are doing it for all the wrong reasons and even if you happen to call and have the best hand then you have still made a mistake.

Calculate correctly and you won't need to be a hero again!

Hero calling is often done against aggressive opponents and when a lot of draws have missed on the river. This is because an aggressive opponent is more likely to bluff than a passive one, also if there are draws that have missed the river usually the only way for a busted draw to win the pot is to have a stab and bet the river.

So does this mean we should just blindly call every aggressive player on the river when a flush draw missed? Well not always, it depends on any reads and history you might have, bet sizing and most importantly what range you can put the player on given the action in the hand and how accurately you can narrow this range down. Usually to consider hero calling we would expect our opponent to have a polarised range (that is they either have a massive hand or a very weak one), but against good opponents this is not always true as they can beat medium hands for value in spots where lesser players want to go to showdown. So against really good aggressive players hero calling is a bit tougher.

You shouldn't be put off hero calling because you are afraid to look like a fool when you turn over your cards, it can be slightly embarrassing and frustrating to call with a King high hand when your opponent actually flopped a monster, but if you have correctly assessed their range and the odds then you should be happy you have likely made the correct play.

I recently played the PartyPoker Dusk Till Dawn Grand Prix, I had made day 2 by playing day 1 online and so when day 2 started I had no reads on anyone. About 20 minutes into the tournament it is my big blind and it folds around to the small blind who limps in, I look down at 73o and decide to check.

OK so a little info first, I have about 500,000 with the blinds at 5,000/10,000/a1000. The small blind has about 2.5million at this point having already doubled up with 88 v AJ all in on a JT8 flop. He seems to be a competent aggressive player. Note when I am new to a table I always pay most attention to the players sitting near me first as those are the players I am more likely to be playing marginal pots with. I had noticed that in a couple of hands he had bet more than half the pot with good hands and this was to prove crucial in this particular hand.

So after I check the dealer spreads the 832 flop with the 8 and 2 both being spades (I had the 3 of spades but an offsuit 7). The small blinds bets the minimum 10,000, this sizing feels like a bit of an info bet here so I suspect he likely has a 2 or a 3, I think he bets bigger with a bluff or an 8. I could raise at this point and look to take the pot down but he might still call and the pot would start to get bigger than I really want in the first level with a 50bb stack so I decide to call.

The turn is the Qs so I now have the nut low flush draw to go with my poor pair poor kicker. He continues for 22,500 and I think for about 30 seconds considering all 3 options at this point, I dismiss folding fairly quickly as I don't think he hit the flush as I believe he would bet more on the flop with the flush draw. This leaves raising or calling, I was tempted to raise as I think I can get him to fold some random spade cards that beat my 3s but in the end I decided to call.

The river is an offsuit ten and he leads for about 35,000 (I forget the exact amount) and I immediately feel like I am ahead, but one mistake I have made quite a lot in the past in these kind of spots is to call too quickly so I take a minute to work through the hand.

The pot at this point is 20,000 (blinds) + 9,000 (antes) + 20,000 (flop) + 45,000 (turn) and his 35,000 bet on river, so 129,000, so it costs me 35,000 to win 129,000, therefore I don't have to be right that often to show a profit.

I am pretty sure he doesn't have an 8 due to the small flop bet. It is possible he hit the ten or queen but again I think he would have bet larger on the turn or river if he had. I also don't believe he has two pair or better for similar reasons. This leaves bluffs, 2x or 3x (both of which I think he might turn into a bluff). I beat all 2x hands which leaves only the 3x hands that have me beat. Remember this was a limped blind versus blind pot so the ranges are pretty much any two cards! Given my indecision on the turn I believe he probably thinks I was thinking more about folding or calling rather than calling or raising (which was actually the case) so I in turn believe this is more likely to make him take a stab here, coupled with the great odds I decide I have to call. As such I put my chips in the pot and he declares one pair, he then turns over 24o and I table my hand to win the pot.

He later said he couldn't believe I called down with just the 3 and that he had bluffed the river because of my apparent reluctance to call the turn. Although this isn't necessarily the greatest example of a hero call (I had 4th pair after all!), it is more an illustration of the basic thought process I went through before making the call, after all I can't beat any hands he is betting for value! When I made the call I didn't feel proud or do a fist pump or sigh with relief or anything, I simply raked the chips up and moved onto the next hand. Remember, making good calls means not being a hero, but being a cool calculator instead!

I ended up making day 3, but sadly bust in 35th place out of over 7,000 entries, not bad but also tantalising close to a big score. There is always next time....