Calling pre flop in no limit hold'em

Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 23 July 2009 / Leave a comment

The great Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson has often been quoted as saying that in no limit hold'em tournaments that he basically never flat calls pre flop.

He either comes in raising, or if confronting an opening raise, is merely thinking about re-raising or folding. In fact, during his run that ending in him winning the WSOP main event championship, he claims to have never called a pre flop bet once.

Late on in tournaments flat calling in nearly all situations is usually a mistake, because the stack sizes make any kind of implied odds based decision impossible,

Although this is a completely valid playing style, and one which is probably close to being OK for many players, at the lower stakes there are some holes in this concept - ones where often flat calling pre flop is a much more viable play than raising/re-raising pre flop.

One of the key reasons for this is pot control. In low buy in tournaments, there are many spots where you will be able to get your money in very good - not just with a slim edge (flopping sets, or hitting flushes/straights etc). As a result, it is in your interest to try and avoid as many marginal spots as possible. As any hand is vulnerable pre flop when playing very deep stacked - as you are early on in tournaments - it is usually wise to try and see flops, keep pots small without monsters and let other players over play their marginal hands for your benefit.

By flat calling raises - or re-raises if you were the initial raiser - early on in tournaments, you give yourself a much better chance of both: a) Hitting big hands on the flop regularly - hands you can feel happy putting the rest of your stack in with instead of just top pair or over pairs; and: b) increasing the number hands you can play - because it costs you less to be involved each time - which gives you more shots at winning weak player's chips due to the great implied odds on offer.

Late on in tournaments flat calling in nearly all situations is usually a mistake, because the stack sizes make any kind of implied odds based decision impossible, simply because no player has enough chips behind to bother getting involved with marginal hands. Early on however, this is not the case, and it is often in your best interest to try and play as many pots as possible, keeping them small until you hit that monster flop where you can try to play for stacks.

Flat calling is useful in these spots, as it enables you to keep pots small until you know if you have a monster, and against weak players this is a much better strategy than building big pots early with just pairs or two big cards.

Get 40% Rakeback at Betfair Poker