How to interpret the "River Call Efficiency"-stat?

Hi ben002,
What tracker are you using?
If you're using PT4, the definition of each stat is available in the software.

While I look up the definition, here is a good discussion of this stat from several years ago.
https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=197930

I'll see if I can find the official definition...
VS

OK, here it is
To find the definition of any stat in PT4:
 Click "Configure" then "Statistics" in the menu
 Find the stat you want in the left hand column of the dialogue
 Click the "Definition" button in the middle.

amt_r_call_won / amt_r_call

so a 1 for R Call Eff means you're totally break-even.
Anything greater than 1 means you're winning more than you're losing.
Less than 1 means you're calling too much.

If you're river call efficiency is too high -- it may mean that you're folding on the river too much -- but how high is too high?

Hope that helped...
VS

In short it means how many dollars you win on average per dollar called. If it's 1, your river calls are breakeven (the results would be the same if you had folded all rivers instead of a call).

I am not sure about HE, but in PLO a good number is 1,5-2. It has to be more than 1, as sometimes you have the nuts and opponent bets or raises. If it's over 2,5 you are probably calling with only good hands. Like if you only call with nuts on the river, the number is sky high.

Always remember sample size. Even if you play 10K hands, only small portion of those go to river. And only a portion of those is a hand where you have the opportunity to call on the river. So if the number looks bad, use a filter to get hands where you have the opportunity to call on the river and see the actual hands. NEVER change your game solely based on a stat, ALWAYS dig deeper.

Finally I know where to find these in PT4 !!

Thank you guys also very much for the advice concerning the stat!
Seems as if I still have some hands to play before this stat starts getting meaningful at all.

Originally posted by Kyyberi
In short it means how many dollars you win on average per dollar called. If it's 1, your river calls are breakeven (the results would be the same if you had folded all rivers instead of a call).

Hey Kyyberi,
Do you happen to know how multi-way split pots are handled?

It seems that these hurt your RCE somewhat.

Cheers,
VS

I have understood that in holdem a RCE of 1 would be theoretically optimal. But at the micros a good value would be around 1.5. Correct me if I'm wrong

How could 1 be optimal? It means that when you call with non-nut hand, you lose more than you would if you would have just folded them all. That doesn’t make sense.

Maybe I said it wrong, but your example doesn't make much sense to me either ♦

If our villain is playing perfect GTO, it would mean that he tries to make us indifferent between folding or calling. If he bets pot OTR, he should bet with 33.3% bluffs and rest should be value hands. That is because to call a pot size bet we would need to win 33.3% of the time. If he bluffs more or less than that, it lets us exploit him.

So if we do play against a guy who plays perfectly balanced we shouldn't be winning any money with our river calls and that is why our river call efficiency would be 1. Or at least I believe it should theoretically work like that. In real life it might be a bit different.
Does that make sense?

Yes. If 100% of opponents make perfectly balanced river bets, then 1 is the best we can get in the long run. In reality, that is not a case ever as long as there are at least some humans playing the game.

In my example the idea is that when we have the nuts and opponent shoves, we always call. And win a lot of money in those hands. In the rest of the situations we should be aiming to get over 1 too. If we could filter away the nut hands, RCE for the rest should be more than one. Otherwise we would make more money by just folding all of those non-nut hands. And when we combine non-nut and nut hands, the stat goes over 1.

If opponent plays with balanced river ranges and makes it indifferent whether we call or fold, what happens when we only call with nuts and fold the rest? Our profit should be the same as with folding 100% of hands, including the nuts? That can’t be the vase, where do I go wrong?

Example: We face 100 river shoves. 1 time we have the nuts and we win, 99 times we don't have the nuts. Let's say we need to call 50 into pot of 200.

The nut hand gives us RCE of 4.

Now if our goal is to have RCE 1, then if we isolate those 99 hands their RCE would be less than one. Meaning that on average those 99 calls were -EV. That's what I ment in my previous example. We should aim to get those non-nut hands to be +EV too, meaning that RCE should be over one for them too. And when we combine the nut hands to it, the overall RCE should go well beyond 1.

Originally posted by Kyyberi
If opponent plays with balanced river ranges and makes it indifferent whether we call or fold, what happens when we only call with nuts and fold the rest? Our profit should be the same as with folding 100% of hands, including the nuts? That can’t be the vase, where do I go wrong?

I am not certain if I am right here, but I think the model with the perfectly balanced river ranges usually assumes that the guy who bets the river always has a polarized range and the guy who might call always is bluff catching. If the model works like this, the caller couldn't have the nuts by definition. So the RCE 1 thing would probably only hold for situations like this.

Yea I said it a bit wrong earlier. I didn't mean that our goal should be to get RCE of 1. We would have that 1 if everyone played perfect GTO. But as you said in the real world that is far from the truth.

If opponent plays with balanced river ranges and makes it indifferent whether we call or fold, what happens when we only call with nuts and fold the rest?

I think he would start bluffing a lot

Originally posted by ben002

Originally posted by Kyyberi
If opponent plays with balanced river ranges and makes it indifferent whether we call or fold, what happens when we only call with nuts and fold the rest? Our profit should be the same as with folding 100% of hands, including the nuts? That can’t be the vase, where do I go wrong?

I am not certain if I am right here, but I think the model with the perfectly balanced river ranges usually assumes that the guy who bets the river always has a polarized range and the guy who might call always is bluff catching. If the model works like this, the caller couldn't have the nuts by definition. So the RCE 1 thing would probably only hold for situations like this.

Yup, I believe you are right.

No, I mean what happens to RCE if we call with nuts and fold the rest?

If it’s indifferent of we call, then the EV should be same no matter of we fold 100% of hands or call 100% of hands. Right?

So if we fold everything but the nuts, how can that have same EV as folding 100% of hands?

I know it shouldnt be the case, but can’t figure it out.

Now I got what you mean. I think it is because of what ben002 mentioned. When we say villain would make us indifferent between calling or folding, then we are assuming the ranges are perfectly polarized and his value bets beat us 100% of the time and his bluffs lose every time vs our bluff catches. So in that case hero couldn't call with the nuts.

So what we have discussed is probably how it works theoretically in a "perfect world" but in reality value bets don't always have 100% equity vs bluff catches and so on.