Calling With Nothing On The River
Don't miss one article! Subscribe to the Full Feed RSS or get NPA in your inbox.
It’s another brief post as I’m spending most of my time these days getting over a nasty cold (ugh) and editing the book (not the most fun, but doesn’t really merit an ugh).
The last time I played live I called a bet on the river with just ten-high. Here’s what happened.
I raised a limper from the button with T9s. The flop came something like K65. My opponent checked, I made a normal-sized c-bet, and he called. The turn was a Q. He checked, I fired a good-sized second barrel, and he called. The river paired the 5, and my opponent bet out for about 1/4 pot.
I called because I thought there was a good enough chance that he was betting as a bluff, and I thought a lot of the hands he could have that would be bluffs would be straight draws around the 65, so my ten-high would actually be good.
But in this case, calling had something else going for it. My opponent was a bluff-mucker. When you play live, sometimes you’ll find yourself up against players who never show their bluffs when called. They’ll just muck their hand. That’s what this guy would do. If he bluffed and got called, he would just say “nice call” and muck his hand.
In limit hold’em I used to take advantage of these guys by calling with nothing. Sometimes the pot was large enough compared to the final river bet that I thought it was worth it to call with any two cards just for the chance to see him muck without a showdown. In other words, I thought he’d muck often enough that a call would show an auto-profit.
In no-limit I don’t think the situation comes up as often (particularly because bluff-raising can work better because you can sometimes get your opponent off “real” hands), but it’s something to keep in mind. If you know a guy will muck a bluff rather than show it down, you don’t always need to have a hand to call.
Obviously this doesn’t work online. 
On a similar note, check out this thread from Stoxpoker about a hand where instructor Leatherass called down with ace-high. I think it’s an instructive hand since this scenario comes up fairly frequently.
Tags: bluff catching, bluff mucking, Leatherass, live-play, mucking without showdown, no-limit-holdem, poker, stoxpoker
So how did it end – did he muck or did you lose a big pot with T high?
/j.