Gavin Smith on Flat Calling

Gavin Smith is one of my favorite players because of his wild card nature. The clip above displays part of what makes Gavin so unpredictable and hard to read. This is actually one of my favorite moves, but I doubt I pull it as well or as often as Gavin does.

Making a flat call (as Gavin explains) means when someone raises preflop, you call with whatever you have – be it pocket kings or 64o. The beauty here is you have your opponents off balance and guessing whether this is the time you have a monster or you have absolutely nothing. The bonus add-in comes when your garbage hands strike gold and you smash your premium cards with a ragged two pair, trips, straight, or flush. Of course you could also flop an open ended straight draw, flush draw, or nick the flop with a pair and use the potential of these hands to put a little muster behind your bets and give you outs in case you’re forced to call an all-in or raise.

The flat call is a more advanced poker play, however. Most of the time you don’t even want to the garbage hands Gavin does, but when you get more experience under your belt, you’ll have the confidence to follow through on stone cold bluffs and calling to set up a big bluff on the turn or the river when you play garbage.