Poker Strategy Tips on Calling and Raising

Tip: Calling

A word about making calls. In a previous article I discussed calling on the river and in another I touched on what it means to be a calling station (that’s not a good thing). There’s one key factor to calling that I haven’t yet addressed specifically. You need to have a better hand in order to make a call than you would need to be the first one to bet. This is especially true of the first round of betting. Calling and raising in poker is an art that is very vital to win the game. Any good player knows when to call or raise during the game. If you are a beginner to the game of poker you can learn more about this art on xe88 slot.

Let’s look at pre-flop in Texas Hold’em as an example. You have KQ and everyone has folded to you. This is not a bad hand to make a raise with in this circumstance. Now, what if you have the same hand (KQ) and someone before you has raised. Surely if you can raise with this hand, you can call, right? Wrong! In the first example, you are taking action because you are becoming the aggressor and may win the hand by getting other players to fold, in addition to the possibility of making the best hand. When you call another player’s raise you lose the element of winning through others folding. Additionally, you are no longer competing against unknown, random hands. You now know that your opponent has a hand they think is good.

Now, this all changes if you know that your opponent is capable of raising with a large number of hands that are worse than yours. In this case you can call more frequently, although it may be better to raise in that situation than to call.

Tip: The Isolation Raise

The two most common reasons for raising a pot are to eliminate opponents and/or because you want to build a larger pot with the best hand. Sometimes your best choice might be to raise even when you are fairly certain that you don’t have the best hand. You’re intention is to eliminate players with weak and moderate hands so that you only have one player to beat. This is referred to as an isolation raise. You are trying to isolate a single opponent.

Here is an example of when this play might be a good idea. You are in a game of 7-card stud and start with 99J. There are four players in the hand. The player to your right has a ten showing as his door card and bets. You have several reasonable choices to make here and it depends on your knowledge of this opponent and several other factors. Without breaking down all the various possibilities, one good option is a raise. You wouldn’t be raising in this position because you think your pair is the best hand, but for several benefits, not least of which is to isolate yourself against one opponent.

Isolation raises are good when you have what you think is a second-best hand but still have pot odds to continue with the hand. Isolation raises are not the correct play when drawing to a big hand like a straight or flush.