{"id":41120,"date":"2015-09-29T11:25:39","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T10:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/?p=41120"},"modified":"2019-10-31T12:23:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T12:23:37","slug":"teach-the-people-making-a-hero-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/teach-the-people-making-a-hero-call.html","title":{"rendered":"Teach The People: Making a Hero Call"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are few better feelings in poker than making a correct hero call. Sure getting away with a bluff is a good feeling, but unless you table your hand, the moment is private. But making a correct hero call can create a celebration around the table, as we saw in a hand between Phil Laak and Brian Rast at the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5u4L68-MqEw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The main factors you\u2019re considering for a hero call are your opponents hand ranges, and bluffing tendencies. Obviously, being familiar with your opponent is important for times like these; Rast and Laak are two long time friends who often play together, so it\u2019s likely Rast has seen Laak make these types of plays before.<\/p>\n<p>The hand plays out straight-forward until he river: Rast makes a light three-bet in position with ace-eight suited, and Laak calls with a hand that\u2019s obscured by the cameras. The 6-4-3 flop misses Rast completely, and he checks behind Laak. The action is repeated on the turn, when both players check a 10. The river brings another 10, making for a dry, paired board that\u2019s unlikely to have connected for either player. At this point, Laak knows Rast can\u2019t have much of a hand, because he would\u2019ve bet the flop or turn with anything better than ace-high. So he elects to make a huge bluff, by betting six times the size of the pot with just queen-high.<\/p>\n<p>I think the absurd sizing is one reason Rast eventually calls; if Laak had a value hand\u2014like trip tens\u2014he probably makes a smaller bet that expects to be called. Rast also knows from experience that Laak uses over-bets in a variety of situations, and that he\u2019s capable of risking that much money on a bluff (I\u2019ve played a moderate amount of cash with Laak, and seen him make similar plays in that limited sample, so I\u2019m confident Rast has seen it before too).<\/p>\n<p>Rast reluctantly mashes his chips into the middle, and the table explodes when they realize his ace-high is good. Thats the real pay-off for a hero call; not the money, but the glory.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Keep up to date with the all things partypoker!<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Get all the latest partypoker updates from your favourite social media outlets. You can <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/partypoker\">Follow us on Twitter<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/partypokerUK\">Like us on Facebook.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are few better feelings in poker than making a correct hero call. Sure getting away with a bluff is a good feeling, but unless you table your hand, the moment is private. But making a correct hero call can create a celebration around the table, as we saw in a hand between Phil Laak<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/teach-the-people-making-a-hero-call.html\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":41121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2182,300],"tags":[680,679,374,184,197,200,435,681,205,371],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41122,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41120\/revisions\/41122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41120"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=41120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}