Many players look at poker in general as a raise of fold game, this can make decisions easier as you are either picking up the betting lead or possibly winning the pot right there, or simply deciding that the hand is not good enough to continue and get out of trouble.

However, there is a fork in the crossroad where there are certain situations that could be good for cold calling raises…

What does Cold Call mean?

This is the term for flat calling a raise or 3Bet when we have yet to put any money in the pot, for instance, there is a raise UTG and a flat call behind from Mid Position, we are on the button with no money yet in the pot, but we flat call this action.

What are the upsides of Cold Calling with some of our range of hands?

• We can get to see cheap flops with hands that play well multiway.
• If we are the last player to call before the button we will have position post flop.
• We will keep in weaker hands behind us and in the blinds as players will be getting a good price to enter the pot once we flat call.

What are the downsides of Cold Calling hands?

• We may induce an aggressive 3Bet that will look to squeeze play us out of the pot compared to them simply folding if we take the initiative and 3Bet.
• We have less equity in multiway pots compared to if we 3Bet and get the pot heads up against just one opponent.
• We will never win the pot preflop, so we will always have to hit the board or bluff post flop in order to bag a win.

What are some good situations for Cold callings hands?

Using hands that play well in multiway pots like pocket pairs 22 – 99 can be good candidates for taking multiway, as when we hit a set we want to have as many players on the line to pay off some bets.

If we have weak players behind us still to act that will play poorly post flop. Allowing these types of players that tend to make mistakes and generally have a poor level of play in pots can be more lucrative for us that if we get them out of the pot, it may outweigh the downsides that we mentioned above and allow us to play with a fish that could lose huge pots to us.

For instance, if we are going to include some Strong Ace high hands into our flatting range like A9s for example and our opponents are the type of players that will get too attached to weaker Ace high hands on any A x x board we are going to win a lot of bets in the long run by allowing them in the pot if they will be folding to 3bets.

What are some situations where we want to avoid Cold Calling with hands?

If we have players behind us that will take aggressive 3Bets with anything less than premium hands then we are better off 3Betting or folding ourselves with hands, this will save us from getting pushed off our equity from these types of moves.

Another player dependant rule is that if the player/players in the pot before us are weak opponents and we will want to isolate them more often rather than going multiway, where we will obviously have less of a chance of winning the pot. It will be more lucrative for us to isolate weaker opponents and have the betting lead in these types of spots.

Conclusion

It is a flip of a coin as to when and when not to cold call, as with many situations in poker it is all very player dependent.
Try and ask yourself if you think you have more of an edge on the players to already be in the pot or if there are worse players still to act that you could benefit from playing against.
Try and consider how many aggressive players you have to act behind that may look to isolate or steal squeeze play if you do flat call, as avoiding these spots will save you money.
Whilst Cold Calling some middling parts of our ranges can be a profitable way to get in pots with bad players be careful not to be on the bad side of coolers by playing hands like low suited connectors that may end up in flush over flush situation that doesn’t go your way, try and always play hands like 89s+ rather than hands as low ranking as say 34s, as a general rule this is going to help you get stuck in some nasty situations.