Call Open (aka CCPF) – a cold call preflop is when a player calls a preflop raise when he doesn’t have any money in the pot yet, including blinds.
Two very important fundamental concepts in Texas Hold’em poker are: 1) you need a stronger hand to call than you need to raise with, and 2) the majority of hands that are good enough to call with, are also good enough to raise. As a result good poker players rarely just call pre-flop.
The Call Open HUD stat shows you the range of probable holdings of a player who cold called and in addition reveals the fish at the table.
When you calculate the cold call range of a player also take away the top holdings using his 3-Bet percentage to increase accuracy.
As for typical cold call ranges, for 6-max tables anything over 10 is too loose, no matter of the playing style. For full ring tables the number goes down to 5 and many winning players cold call under 2% of the time. On the low and micro limits you will often see opponents who cold call 40-50% – think of these online poker players as your donors and always try to take them on, isolate and bust them.
Examples using Call Open (CCPF)
/For sake of simplicity we’ll assume all opponents have stacks of about 100BB/
Full ring table, we are in MP with AQo. It’s folded to us and we raise 3xBB. A player in LP calls and the blinds fold. Flop comes 2 4 A rainbow. We make a C-Bet of half the pot and the opponent calls. The turn is a 9. We bet again half of the pot and are called. On the river comes another 2, eliminating the possibility of a flush or straight. The pot is now 30xBB. Should we bet or check? Let’s see the stats.
a) VPIP=38 / PFR=9 / Call Open=22 / PF Raise 3-Bet=3 / Agg Pct=35
A loose-passive player – a delicious combination. Opponents with Call Open stat of 22% play any suited ace and most unsuited ones, so he’s probably holding a weaker ace and is hoping for a miracle. His 3-Bet preflop range of 3% (JJ+, AK) suggests that he’s not currently holding AK and his passive play so far probably means that he doesn’t have a set. We should value bet this opponent again on the river – most often than not he would make a crying call with a weaker hand.
b) VPIP=18 / PFR=11 / Call Open=3 / PF Raise 3-Bet=4,5 / Agg Pct=55
A TAG player smooth calls us twice, which should sound the alarm in our head. What could this opponent have now? With a Raise 3-bet of 4,5% he would probably re-raise AK, AQs and 99 preflop. There were no draws in the hand. 44 is not a strong enough hand to play according to his Call Open range. Maybe he has AQo and wanted to see the river cheaply, or he slow-played AA.
Anyway we have no interest to bet here – if he’s got us beat he’ll raise and if he has the AQ we’ll split. Checking here may even induce a desperate bluff from his part if he has a AJs or was slow-playing KK all along. If he bets a reasonable amount after our check we’ll probably have to look him up.
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