Poker : Don't call too often in a poker game

The player has three options when betting in a poker game: calling, folding, and raising. Many beginners call more often then they should, but that is a mistake.

Often folding, sometimes raising and rarely calling is the way to play the game if you want to be successful. And here is why:

Let's say the game you are playing is a $10/$20 limit Hold'em, and you are located in the middle of the table. Your hole cards: Q and J. The blinds have remained in the game but the next three players have folded. You can fold, or call which is $10, or raise which is $20. What is your move?

The passive players would choose to call in this situation because the hole cards are pretty good, but the winning players would raise. Their reason for raising?

Because your hole cards are probably the best, and because in the pot there are already $15. A raise would discourage the blinds to play; maybe they would fold even with an Ace as a pocket card. They should pay if they want to continue, and if they don’t, you just made some easy money.

Now let's take the same situation just with a single modification. You have the same hole cards, the three players have folded just in the previous example, but now the blind before you has raised. Now what do you do?

In this situation you should fold, because the raise indicates that he might have a good hand. In the previous situation it seemed that your hand was the best but now it's not the case. You better fold if you don’t want to lose more money.

We wanted to prove with these two examples that the situation can change very fast; a raise can put you in a disadvantage, and even with a call you would not have been able to solve anything.

It is normal to call in games played with your friends, where almost every time all the players remained in the showdown but in a professional game, things look different. Constant calling might make your opponents fold, and even if you won you will not have won too much.

If you are confident that your hand is good, raise, and if you don't have confidence in your hand, fold. Raising can also be used as a way of gathering information. Let's say you play a game of Hold’em and your hole cards are Js/Jc, and the flop reveals 10d-5d-2d.

One of the player raises bets $10, but you are uncertain if he has a flush or a pair of 10s. You can raise $10 to find out.

A re-raise would mean that he has something very good and you should fold in that situation instead of going all the way to the showdown.

There are some cases when calling should be used, and that is when you want to build the pot. You have a very strong hand and in order to keep your opponents in the game you call instead of raising.