Explanation of Hero call
A hero call is a risky decision made on the river, despite the apparent unlikelihood of success. In many scenarios, it would require our adversary to be bluffing, and there’s a possibility that our hand won’t even beat all potential bluffs they might have. For example, we might make a call with Queen-high and discover that our opponent has converted King-high into a bluff.
This differs from the concept of \"bluffcatching,\" which entails ensuring that our hand can beat all of our opponent's bluffs. Bluffcatching is a fundamental aspect of sound poker strategy, in contrast to hero calling , which is less reliable. To justify a hero call, one must have a very thorough understanding of what hand their opponent is likely holding.
Example of Hero Call used in a sentence -> We had a strong feeling that our opponent was trying to bluff with a missed draw, so we confidently decided to hero call all-in on the river with just King-high as our best hand.
How to Incorporate Hero Call into Your Poker Strategy
Hero calling isn't generally accepted as a correct strategy in poker theory. In fact, it often turns out to be the wrong move in most cases. The occasional success of a call doesn't ensure it's a profitable tactic in the long run.
On the other hand, calling with weaker hands, also known as bluffcatching, is generally regarded as a sound concept. It's crucial to select our bluffcatching hands carefully to make sure they can effectively counter our opponent's potential bluffs. To the untrained observer, bluffcatching and hero calling might look quite similar. A typical play might mistakenly be labeled as a ‘ hero call ’ when it is actually a proper bluffcatch. bluffcatch In practice, hero calling can only be justified with a very specific read on our opponent’s betting behavior. For instance, if a specific bet sizing consistently signals a bluff from our opponent, we may feel justified in making a hero call even if there's a chance we could lose to some bluff hands. The profitability of our call is determined by the pot odds we are presented with (e.g., if our opponent makes a half-pot bet, we need to be right at least 25% of the time to validate the hero call ).
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