Yorky Pud

Everyone loves a super hero, if not then why are comic books (or graphic novels as the geeks prefer to call them) and films depicting these characters so popular. They are part of folklore around the world, even the bible has some for crying out loud and as I type this the four-year old Step Pud is donning a rather fetching Batman outfit.

But what have our masked crusaders got to do with poker, do they have a place in our game? Well surely you have heard of the term “hero call,” a term reserved for when a player makes a call on the river in an attempt to snap off a bluff from their villain. A hero call is named as such because if you are actually correct and have the best hand then you look like a hero, less said the better regarding what you look like if you are wrong though!

So we have somehow made it to the river with Th9h on a board reading 3c-Ts-5c-Ad-Qh and we have checked to our opponent who pauses for a few moments before betting around two-thirds the pot. Does he have our pair of tens with a weak kicker beaten or does he simply hold some sort of busted draw and is bluffing? Before you don your cape and make a hero call you need to take a few things into consideration.

Firstly, what level of thinking does the villain partake in? If he is a rank amateur or someone who only thinks at level zero or level one then he is less likely to be bluffing and actually more likely to be holding the cards that he is representing. However, if your opponent is more skilled then they could indeed be attempting to represent a made hand even if they have a busted draw.

You also need to take into account any previous history that you may have with the player and try to apply any reads you may have to this situation. It is times like this that you need to know if the villain is capable of double and even triple barrel bluffing and whether or not they seem to alternate their bet sizes depending on the strength of their hand or when they are bluffing.

Using these two points you should be able to figure out if the line your opponent has taken actually makes any sense and if it is possible for them to hold what they are telling you they have. Use your common sense too, a player who has been passive on the flop and turn who suddenly bets big on the river is probably bluffing.

Finally, both your stack size and your opponent's stack sizes are very important when factoring whether you should call or not. Obviously this is not as much as a factor in a cash game where you can reload if you are wrong and villain gets away with the swag. But in a tournament the size of their stack can be a massive clue to their holding. Micro and short stacks are generally moving in preflop so your hero call generally happens before the flop and is based on pot odds only. Larger stacks are more inclined to be making moves where as medium stacks of 15-30bb are less likely to be doing so as losing would be disastrous to them.

By all means put your mask on and make the call if everything you have observed adds up to villain bluffing but try not to let one successful hero call send you to the dark side of habitually calling each and every river bet otherwise you will run into your equivalent of kryptonite!