I am constantly torn between not folding on river in a big pot heads up, and trusting my read which tells me I am beaten.

I am leading the whole way. A scare card comes that looks like it will fit villains draw, and now I have to decide wether to call one more bet.

I know in a big pot I should call regardless, but where do we draw the line. Maybe it's because lately I am always losing these pots that I am questioning it now. I know early on when I was running good I won a bunch of pots with crying calls. Since I don't want "luck" to dictate here I must ask where the magic line exists between trusting your read and folding vs. making the crying call.

I sawa response from Steve-O on this thread, but now its gone. Not sure what happeened, but the basic gist was he is almost always calling in a big pot. I agree, but am lead to ask the question "When do we consider the pot to be big"?

Is there a certain pot/bet ratio that triggers "Big". I try to look at it in terms of 6:1 I only need to win 1 out 6 times to break even......obviously 10 to 1 is better......so where is the magic line?

I guess no one else finds this question difficult when playing judging by the lack or responses.

Well there were a couple responses, but due to the dbase reset yesterday, they got deleted.

Basically, as I have said in other threads, You gotta figure the EV of saving a bet vs the cost of losing a pot. The affect of the onbe saved BB has on WR pales in comparison to the dozen or so BB's gained by winning a big pot. IF you think, on average, you will profit > 1 BB by calling, then it outweighs the guranteed 1bb saved by folding.

HoH states that he almost always puts 10% chance that a player is bluffing. Therefore, if you already have 9-1 or better odds, this makes it an insta call (as long as you can beat a bluff). Then if you add the chances of your hand winning on its own, the odds required to call on the end are reduced even further.

But, even if you think you have odds, if your EV for calling is less than 1 BB, then you are better off folding the hand.

I know I'm going to get arguements that folding is not +1 BB EV, but 0 BB EV. I agree with that arguement, but I think it's a point of view type arguement too. I consider it saving a bet instead of not losing a bet.

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OK Marm,

So lets say we agree that any hand from tptk up is an auto call getting 9 to 1 odds for 1 bet. Playing .25/50, this would be 4.50 in the pot....I agree that that is large enough for me.

Where I have the problem is when the pot is, say, 2.50...here i am getting 5 to 1. I have TPTK and the flush or strt draw has hit the board and villain all of a sudden bets. I have a hard time folding here and am inclined to call.

I guess it important wether villain is a passive or aggrssive player. Under 1 aggro factor probably shouls be an auto fold i guess, but I can never get past my fear of folding and costing myself a pot.

This is a difficult balance because this will happen more than a couple of times per 100 hands, and this could be the difference between 2 or 3 bb over that 100. Of course folding too often in these spots will cost you more than that.

I am not expecting any defined answers here, just talking out an aspect of the game that I struggle with.

You said it yourself, it depends on who your up against. My threshold for calling drastically changes as my opponents change. Against a frequent bluffer who you have seen make bluffs when draws hit, I call given even really bad odds, like 2-1 or such. Againt players that don't bet, I will probably fold. And against pure rocks, I may even fold when I am gettin like 10-1 or better.

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It all depends on the stake size. In small stakes hold'em you should literally never fold to a "scare" card. The quality and looseness of the players quite simply means that a lot of them will overplay their hands.

Exactly. The times you do win with your 2 pair or high pair will more than offset the other losses. If your odds are 5-1 your hand only needs to hold up 17% of the time. Conversely, there is no way that you can be 83% certain that you just got outdrawn. Especially if you're sitting on a semi-decent hand.

High stakes - different story.

-V

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