Hero Calls: A Serious Threat to Your Poker Bankroll

It's become a staple of the televised cash game; someone decides to get tricky and make a multi-barrel bluff with a completely garbage hand, and their opponent somehow finds the will to call them down with a completely ludicrous holding; an underpair to the board, high card, etc, and win a monster pot holding napkins. It seems almost effortless when they do it, but every time you attempt to make the supreme hero call, you slam down 200 big blinds on the table with ace high, only to find your opponent indeed was bluffing; with 33, which means you've turned your hero call into an insanely thin value bet by your opponent. So, how are you supposed to know when the right opportunities are to make the hero call? The first major thing to know is this; you won't be making a lot of hero calls throughout the course of your career playing poker; if you do, you'll find yourself paying off far too often. You need to be looking for opponents who do three main things when they play; they bluff often, they bluff on suspected weakness, and they bluff on boards that make their bluffs easier to call down with marginal hands (for example, he attempts to bluff the king of clubs river on a 3782Kdd board, meaning he could've likely missed diamonds of a straight draw) Then, you also have to make sure you HAVEN'T caught this player bluffing yourself prior to your potential hero call. If you have, the player will be less inclined to make completely hopeless bluffs and more inclined to thin value bet; meaning you'll be making a lot more of those hero fails than you will hero calls. Once all of these facets are in place, you actually have to be in a situation that allows you to make a hero call (see why you won't be making many?) like the following example. You open to $6 on the button in a $1/$2 game with a $300 stack with A10d, and get three bet to $20 by the super loose aggressive small blind; you call. The flop is 679dd, giving you a gutshot and a flush draw. The small blind checks, and you bet out $35 into the $42 pot, and the small blind calls. The turn is another 6, and your opponent checks. You elect to check too, and the river is a completely blank deuce of hearts. Your opponent suddenly takes this opportunity to fire out $100 into the $112 pot. What bluffs could your opponent have in this range? A missed 8x makes sense, as do diamonds; he would probably be more inclined to check a hand like 87, but he could definitely be betting 67/68/69/810/77/99 for value here, meaning that, in order to profitably call, you have the think this is one of the bluffing scenarios more than 33% of the time. He could have air, but as far as diamonds go, you have nut diamonds, reducing the likelihood that he is bluffing with diamonds. He also may think you're tight enough to fold a hand like A7 to a river bet, and be bluffing with AQ/AK; another instance where you call and find that he bluffed with the best hand. I wouldn't hero call here; and hero calling in general is a difficult, and tricky proposition.

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