Guys,

I just recently started to review some of my hands after around 20k hands. I'm marginally profitable overall and I've been playing both omaha and nlhe. I really feel like I leak lots of money by making marginal river calls but I also realize I don't want to be exploitable by folding to every river raise or bet. I'm losing at a pretty large clip on my river calls. Should I be showing a profit on them or what? Obviously I realize the answer is not an easy one but how often are you hero calling etc.? I think I do it too much.

Yes and it depends on who you’re playing against. In general, the more the people you’re playing against are bluffing the lighter you should be calling down. If you feel like you’re hero calling a lot, you’re prolly hero calling too much.

This is a huge leak. Making exploitable folds is how you earn a lot of your win-rate at low stakes.

You should always be looking to show a profit on your actions. However, after 20k hands you won't have a large enough sample to really know for sure you're calling river too much, since a large majority of those hands didn't see showdown.

Depends on how we're defining "being profitable". If we're looking at all the hands where we called river and looking whether we've made or lost money in total, I think the answer is no. Imagine we're facing a pot-sized bet in every hand. We break even on the call if we're right 33% of the time, even though that results in us losing 67% of all hands.

Now, if we're only looking at the profit made by the river call (considering the money already contributed to the pot as dead money), then yes, these should be profitable. If we're losing money by calling, it would even be a better strategy to always fold (since folding is always break-even from the point of decision).

What stakes are you playing? River bluff raises are actually fairly uncommon at the micros. Most of the time if you get raised on the river your opponent will have a strong hand so folding weak holdings [2nd/3rd pair] a lot to river raises will probably be +ev. If you can post some hands where you were faced with what you perceive as a difficult river decision you'll receive better insight.
It also sounds like you need to work on hand reading skills. Try Own Gaines book 'Hole Card Confessions: Hand-Reading and Exploitative Play in Hold'em'.

Yes. Correct poker results in never making a -ev play; this doesn't mean that we win every time we put money in the pot, but instead it means that poker is a series of profitable actions. If your actions are not profitable, then you should be folding in those unprofitable spots because folding is free, or 0ev.

If you're considering the money invested previously as a sunk cost, then yes you should be showing an ev greater than or equal to zero here.

Of course sometimes you make some -ev calls, perhaps vs a player that you were not aware of having value heavy betting ranges; however this does not in itself mean you're losing ev; this is because value heavy betting ranges result in junk heavy checking ranges. If the opponent is giving up often with hands that should bluff? Then your checking range gains ev by winning more checkdown battles.

Take a look at the previous streets as well .. in and out of position. If you have a thin/marginal holding and are able to 'avoid' a Flop and/or Turn bet via pot control then I can accept making thin/marginal calls on the River 'more often'. However if you are just getting stubborn in hands where you should've folded/checked Flop/Turn and you are feeling invested in the call, then that might be an easy first place to focus.

I find it's pretty easy to not lose chips on the River when I fold on the Flop! Both are exploitable, but one costs much less than the other. GL

You should probably lose more than 50% on your river calls or you fold too much but each of them should still be profitable considering pot odds.

If you have a tracker, just look at the 'river call efficiency' stat (once you've got a decent sample size). If it's above 1.0, you're making money on river calls, even though you'll have the worst hand the majority of the time. At the lowest stakes, you can play nitty and avoid the variance of making thin calls, and end up with an RCE of about 1.4, which actually means you're folding the best hand too often. At higher levels, you need to bluffcatch more often (leading to an RCE nearer 1.0 and bigger swings), but you need to learn how to make the tight folds while you're establishing yourself.

hard to figure as maybe the way you bet makes more money on other streets and to make that money you end up losing some on the river.
for instance supposed they call you too much on other streets because you call too much on the river. but that shows a profit overall for you.

not the best analogy but shows more things can influence paper results than they seem.