3. Is the bettor a tight player and the caller a loose player? A tight player who is first to act is capable of bluffing in this spot. The loose player is capable of calling with anything in this spot. You should generally consider calling, unless you know for sure that the first player who bet just doesn’t bluff in this spot or has a habit of checking his good hands.

4. Are the bettor and caller both tight players? If so, then you’ll usually need a much better than average hand to call.

Just like playing loose is not always a bad tactic, playing tight is not always the best tactic. It’s really a question of how good your opponents are. There’s no substitute for knowing your opponents. casino online

If you could know only the bettor or the caller, not both, you’d make the best decisions in the long run by knowing the caller. The first caller is the key player in this equation. If you recognize the caller as a good, solid, experienced player (and especially if you know that he’s just a better overall player than you), you can take advantage of that knowledge.

The next time you play in your usual game, keep track of the times that you make an overcall on the river. Record how many big bets you win and how many you lose when you’re in these situations. If you make an overcall and lose the hand, count that as losing one big bet. If you make an overcall and win the hand, count the number of big bets in the pot, minus the bet you called with.

All you have to do is keep a running, cumulative total of big bets won and lost. You’re not concerned with the number of pots won or lost because they’ll always be different sizes, and one win therefore does not always equal another win.

This chapter may be short, but it’s very important. Overcalling correctly is essential, because you have a chance to do the wrong thing so many times during the course of a game. When you have an opportunity to put a lot of big bets per hour into action, you can see that an incorrect strategy can have an immediate, huge, and negative impact on your hourly rate. This aspect of the game is one that you can work on easily, and the effort is certainly worth your time. Good luck.

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