Some players (usually experienced ones) are capable of snap-calling with monster hands, but it is far from the norm. For instance, on a dry board, a player with a set who is facing a substantial bet is usually going to consider for a few moments how to extract max value. This can eliminate a lot of hands from a player’s range.
In my book Reading Poker Tells, I basically say that (while there is obviously a lot of variation) snap-calls can tell us a lot because it means an opponent has ruled out raising as an option and they have done so almost immediately. After writing that last blog post, it got me thinking long into the night and I came up with some (hopefully-logical) ideas. (I called them “quick calls” but I should say “immediate calls” or “snap calls” because “quick” could be interpreted as someone moving their bet in with a quick motion.) I had talked in my book about quick calls for a short bit, but I’ve never felt happy with that section, because I felt there was much more to say on it. The last post I wrote talked about immediate calls and what they might mean.
