...and when to fold them. (crossposted in Books/Software)

[twang]

Hi all. The following is going to be somewhat of a rant without a clearcut question.

Something I think is lacking in every pokerbook I have read (and also the majority of the HH:s here) is good and plenty of focus on folding situations. Out of the limited number of actions at the holdem table, folding is what we do the most. It doesn´t matter if you are playing Miller-style by the book, Jones-style or anything in between - folding is going to be every halfdecent pokerplayers most frequent action, period.

Given that, I find it really strange that the majority of the educational material I have come across focus so little on the meat and potatoes of the game, so to speak. Note that I am not talking about those marginal situations where the right decision is hard and can be debated endlessly. I am talking about the situations that are no-brainers for good, solid players, but that the average or below average players struggle with.

Ed Miller and others always mention the fact that money is lost by taking weak hands too far and that money is made after the flop. I absolutely agree with that. What I don´t know (or at least am a little uncertain about) is what the first statement really means.

There´s also a psychological/educational aspect of this. Basically it´s this: When we are trying to learn to be good players, the majority of material (examples if you will) does not focus on the situations that we will encounter the most. I lack focus on basics; the jab, the standard golfswing or whatever. What does that do to our game? I don´t know, but sometimes I feel like it is taken for granted that I (the student of the game) should know what to do in those boring and endless "standard" situations between the difficult and "interesting" hands.

To be honest, I think this is why quite a few players have problems with SSH; they understand (or at least try to) how to push marginal situations, squeezing the last drop out of a tiny edge, but they leak away money in the myriad of more standard situations, situations where the author and other solid players feel perfectly comfortable. (This is not something specific about SSH though, it is more a general phenomena, but I think SSH serves as a good example.)

To round up, I would like to see a poker book that described the main part of poker reality better: post-flop folding situations en masse.

That´s all. Feel free to call me a weak-tightie that should re-read WLLH. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

/twang

[jtr]

Hmm.

Your post seems well thought-out, and if I hadn't read any of the books you're talking about I would be sympathetic. But having read SSHE and WLLH, for example, I just don't agree with you. OK, these authors tend to focus on the small pool of hands where a call or raise is in order, but it's not as if they leave it to your imagination that all else should be folded. Jones, in particular, spends a lot of time telling you how to recognize when to fold (possibly too much time on this topic but that's another story).

Or did you want more guidance on when to bet hands that are really boring and obvious bet/raise situations? Again, I feel that both Miller and Jones provide plenty of examples.

Sorry to disagree with your premise.

[twang]

My post wasn´t aimed at WLLH, SSH or any other specific book, it´s more about a general eduacational concept that is in effect more or less everywhere.

What is specific about that concept - and what I suspect is not so good - is that examples of postflop folding situations are pretty rare. Yes, I know that they absolutely exist, I´m not debating that. What I would like is that these kind of situations should be given more room and more focus.

My logic might be comletely off here, but if

* 80% of our hands are folded PF
* 75% of the remaining hands are folded on the flop
* 50% of the hands that makes it from the flop are folded on the turn
* and 30% of the surviving hands are folded on the river

(numbers are of course made up, just an example),

shouldn´t that be reflected in the educational material?

/twang

[MaxPower]

The EV of folding is always zero, so you don't need to think about it much. You just need to figure whether the EV of either betting, calling, or raising is greater than zero. If it is not, you fold.

[Ed Miller]

OK, these authors tend to focus on the small pool of hands where a call or raise is in order, but it's not as if they leave it to your imagination that all else should be folded.

I intentionally avoided including lots of "folding" hands. I felt that the primary audience for my book would be weak-tight "trying to play well" players, and one of their problems is that they actually fold way too often. So I slanted my book to talk about the "no, don't fold here" situations. SSH is not meant to be read in a vacuum.

I will spend more time talking about folding in my beginners book. Beginners need to learn how to fold. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[swarbre]

could you possibly include a section encourging calling down a preflop raiser with jack high and three beting with offsuit junk i'm sure we would all appreciate it. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[ QUOTE ]
OK, these authors tend to focus on the small pool of hands where a call or raise is in order, but it's not as if they leave it to your imagination that all else should be folded.

I intentionally avoided including lots of "folding" hands. I felt that the primary audience for my book would be weak-tight "trying to play well" players, and one of their problems is that they actually fold way too often. So I slanted my book to talk about the "no, don't fold here" situations. SSH is not meant to be read in a vacuum.

I will spend more time talking about folding in my beginners book. Beginners need to learn how to fold. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ] /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[uw_madtown]

[ QUOTE ]
I will spend more time talking about folding in my beginners book. Beginners need to learn how to fold. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, you're going to write a GOOD beginners book?

Et tu, Miller? After all you've done for my pocketbook, you're going to go and kick it in the balls on the next go around? Why? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?

[Brian]

Then try Ciaffone$Brier's Middle Limit Hold'em Poker, which is full of (some weak-tight) post-Flop folds.

-Brian

[tolbiny]

What are you nutzzz!!!???!!!
there are plenty of posters- i.e. tolbiny, victor, tolbiny, who study this game, read books, post here, and still don't apply the concepts right fairly often.

[jtr]

OK, I see your argument Twang.

But surely spending time on folding hands in proportion to their frequency is a bit like spending 99.9% of the education of airline pilots on teaching them to fly straight and level, as, after all, that's what they do most of the time.

Regards,
--JTR.

[joker122]

[ QUOTE ]
Then try Ciaffone$Brier's Middle Limit Hold'em Poker, which is full of (some weak-tight) post-Flop folds.


[/ QUOTE ]

I knew it just by your subject line.

[DonkeyKong]

I thought the book did a great job of letting you do the math to determine whether folding is correct or not. If you don't have the pot odds to pursue your draw i.e, the pot is small, fold. The nuances of quantifying your outs and risk-adjusting them for redraws based on the betting patterns of others, the texture of the flop and the number of players in the pot is then gained through experience.

I read some crappy books a long time ago and then read Super System, HEPAP, Theory of Poker and assorted others and while they were good -- they just don't suit lower limit hold 'em with 6 players per pot... Ed's book is going to be a classic for the next generation of online low limit players...

Now Ed, please do a cash-game NL book for the masses...