The Toll Men

When you’re playing against savvy poker online players, it’s almost impossible to go through a game at the casino online without at least getting bluffed a few times. And there will be times during those bluffs where you’re going to want to keep the player honest. Well if you insist, I’m going to let you in on some online poker tips to make your hero call a little more effective. First things first. You have to understand the situation. Are you in position or out of position to make the call. Let’s say a player raises under the gun. If that happens you automatically have to give him more respect than if he raised in late position. Next, think about your own hand. How strong is it. You should have close to the nuts if you’re going to make the hero call. Say you have A-10 and the flop comes A-J-10. You’ve got top and bottom pair; A-J beats you as does KQ for the straight. So in a situation like this one, you’ll have to analyze the play of the raiser. Is KQ in his opening range? Did he preflop raise? This is something you should be thinking about. Next, you have to decide how much it’s worth. So you’ll be looking at Pot Odds in a contextual setting. If you’re on the bubble of the money in a tournament, is it really worth it to risk all or most of your stack just to try to put out the bluffing bandit? I would certainly say not to and wait for a more opportune time to strike. Maybe you’re in a ring game though, and you have his stack dwarfed and he pushes 10 all-in into a 5 dollar pot and you have 100 behind you. You’d be more prone to call here as it couldn’t cause you as much damage and you could possibly be paid off with a higher probability. So basically what it comes down to is analysis. The context of the game, the texture of the flop, and the relative strength of your hand against the other player’s probable holdings.