Everybody Wants to be a Hero by Phil Galfond

A “hero call” is when someone makes a calldown against a big bet or series of big bets with a very weak hand. He’s hoping his opponent is on a bluff and he’ll end up looking like a hero.

The problem with hero calls is that when people see a great player make a big calldown, they try to emulate it without understanding the reasons the great player is making it. They end up making terrible calldowns and waste tons of money.

I’m going to look at a couple of hero calls that I’ve made and explain my reasoning.

Villain is a good tourney player. Very loose aggressive. Not many reads other than that.

This one is, in my opinion, a read that many people could make if they thought about it.

So, let’s talk about my line. I lead the flop for full pot with my gutshot and backdoor diamond draw. This is a standard play for me in a limped pot. He raises small. I don’t have direct odds for my draw and my straight draw might be no good, but I don’t think he’s very strong and I should be able to bluff him on later streets since my flop call represents a real hand.

On the turn, I pick up my pair and I want to show down my hand, thinking it’s good a lot of the time. He checks behind. When he does this, I put him on either a draw or a mediumstrength made hand. Something like 10-9.

The river hits and I check. He quickly shoves for over 2x the pot. Some people might think, “Wow, big bet; middle pair must be no good,” and fold. I started to think about hands that he could have.

If he had a set or a straight, why did he check behind at the turn? I decided that this particular player wouldn’t, so I eliminated those hands from his range, except for 2-2 that hit on the river. Then there were draws and total bluffs. Every legitimate draw missed (Q-J, J-10, Q-10), except for 10-7, which hit on the turn; but I decided he wouldn’t check back a straight, so that’s not in his range. So we have some missed draws that we beat, and 2-2-2, which we lose to. Hands like 10-9 play the flop and turn the same way, but they wouldn’t shove on the river. They aren’t strong enough. Same is true for any hand that picked up two pair, like 9-2.

Given all of this, and the likelihood of him having 2-2 (very small for many reasons), I called. He showed Q♣J♣ and I won.

Now this is a really interesting spot. My opponent is a smart player, so there’s a lot going on here. He can reraise preflop with a very wide range, so I don’t think it’s worth it to put him on a hand just yet. He also bets the full pot on an ace high flop with most of his hands, so I can’t narrow down his range very much.

On the turn he checks. I think that he can have a lot of hands — still most of his reraising range. What I don’t think he can have is two pair or a set. He would bet again with those to protect his hand or get value from worse hands on a board like this with the aggression level of the match so far. He could be tricky and check a flush here, but I think that he usually bets it.

The river hits and he shoves, again for a 2x overbet. He’s representing a hand like A-A, J-J, A-5, 5-3, or a big flush. But based on my thoughts, he couldn’t have most of these hands. With 5-3 he might check the turn, and with the flush too; but with other full houses he wouldn’t, in my opinion.

He could have something like K-5 or 6-5, making a large very thin bet. That scared me a little bit. My pair of jacks certainly isn’t beating any legitimate hand that he has — only pure bluffs.

Since I thought he could get to the river like this with most of his range, I then had to decide how often he would make a bluff like this with air (or a hand too weak to win at showdown). This is really what it all comes down to. Weighing the likelihood of him bluffing against the likelihood of him having a real hand, I decided it was unlikely he had a real hand, but with a big bet like this, it’s unlikely that most people would be bluffing.

What it came down to was what I thought he put me on. The way your opponent plays the hand isn’t the only thing that’s important. You have to look at your line, too. He’s smart. He knows that I can’t have a flush or a full house either, because I wouldn’t check the turn behind with a set or flush, except maybe the nut or 2nd nut flush. The best hand I could have is something like A-J. So, if he knows that I can’t have better than A-J, he should think that I can’t call a shove with any of my hands. This is because A-J doesn’t beat any legitimate hands he could be betting like this on the river.

So, since he knows I can’t be very strong, he’s much more likely to bluff. I decided because of that, he would bluff like this fairly often.

Keep in mind, there are times when I’ve made calls like this and looked like an idiot. You have to realize that it’ll happen sometime. Making calldowns isn’t an exact science. Some percent of the time, I’m gonna get shown a huge hand in these spots. Just because I do, though, doesn’t mean I was wrong to call. Just because I get shown a bluff doesn’t mean I was right.

Try to keep in mind what your opponent is representing with his bet, and how likely he is to have it. Weigh that against the chances you think he gets to the river with a bluff and bluffs again. It takes practice. Also keep the pot odds in mind. You usually have to be right less than 33% of the time because of the odds you’re getting.

On the flip side, when you are bluffing against a smart opponent, make sure you are representing a hand that makes sense. Also think about what hand he can have, and how likely he is to fold it.