WLLHE starting hands with ITH

[Isura]

I have read/re-read WLLHE and logged several thousand hands winning at .5/1 empire. I've been reading ITH, focusing on the post-flop sections. Would it be okay to use the starting hand recommendations from WLLHE while I study ITH, so I can focus more on the post-flop play. I noticed that ITH has much more detailed charts, especially for the blinds, is learning these as important at my stage. Thanks.

[AKQJ10]

Probably not. I haven't read Hilger, but Ed Miller (whose book i'm just starting) makes the very cogent point that little tweaks to your preflop play are very unimportant compared to improving your postflop play. WLLHE isn't going to lead you far wrong, and as long as you're not playing dead wrong preflop i think your time is better spent worrying about postflop play.

JMO of course.

[jrz1972]

One point that Miller stresses is that all decent pre-flop systems are more or less the same from an EV standpoint. If you're playing ace-rag utg or routinely coldcalling pre-flop raises, then yeah there's a problem, but neither Jones nor Hilger is going to be advising you to play like that. By contrast, consider AJo in EP. Jones and Hilger have you folding, Miller has you limping if the game is tight, and many in these forums would come in raising (including Miller if the game is loose). When several experts disagree over how to play a hand like this pre-flop, you should tend to take that as a sign that its a very close decision in terms of EV, and you're probably not going too far wrong whatever you opt to do.

In other words, everybody reputable agrees on how to play most hands pre-flop. On the hands where reputable people disagree, it doesn't really matter that much how you play them. So just pick a pre-flop system you like, stick with it, and worry about your post-flop play.

[Isura]

Thanks for the input guys. I will definitely now stick with my pre-flop strategy and get more hours under my belt. I'm slowly improving my post-flop play, I think ITH has excellent coverage of post-flop play, much more detailed than WLLHE.