Lou Kreiger on the biggest hold em mistake

[spurgeon]

What is the biggest mistake hold em players make? According to Lou Kreiger, in his book more hold em excellence, it is getting in KICKER TROUBLE.

[Luv2DriveTT]

[ QUOTE ]
What is the biggest mistake hold em players make? According to Lou Kreiger, in his book more hold em excellence, it is getting in KICKER TROUBLE.

[/ QUOTE ]

For Lou I thought it was writing a book about hold'em in the first place, so people now know he doesn't know what he is talking about in that game.

TT /images/graemlins/club.gif

[Easy E]

As in, "you just bought my book and you lost on the 2+2 kicker"?

[Grisgra]

[ QUOTE ]
What is the biggest mistake hold em players make? According to Lou Kreiger, in his book more hold em excellence, it is getting in KICKER TROUBLE.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only if he's talking about full-ring games. And even then, I don't know it's the BIGGEST mistake you can make.

[HopeydaFish]

[ QUOTE ]

Only if he's talking about full-ring games. And even then, I don't know it's the BIGGEST mistake you can make.

[/ QUOTE ]

The *most common* mistake players make is not considering position when deciding which hands to play. Understanding position is the biggest difference between a winning player and a losing player.

That being said, I'd say the *worst* mistake a player can make is whatever mistake he consistently makes that is costing him money, and keeps doing it because he doesn't realize it is a mistake. It could be not defending the blinds, not value-betting, not calculating pot odds / implied odds properly, playing too many speculative hands, not raising to thin the field, cold-calling too many pre-flop raises, slow-playing AA or KK, or playing Ax too often and getting outkicked at showdown... everyone's "biggest" mistake is different.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
What is the biggest mistake hold em players make? According to Lou Kreiger, in his book more hold em excellence, it is getting in KICKER TROUBLE.

[/ QUOTE ]
The way you get into kicker trouble on a consistent basis is by taking weak cards to battle, i.e., playing too loosely. If you hit 1 pair with J8, you always have to worry about your kicker. You never have kicker trouble with AK. Playing too loosely is a very common and expensive error, though I don't know I would say it is the biggest.

Once you see the flop and hit TPWK, you usually shouldn't give it up easily.

[Reef]

your avatar is disturbing

[ElSapo]

[ QUOTE ]
your avatar is disturbing

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
What is the biggest mistake hold em players make?

[/ QUOTE ]

Holdem is about making money. Therefore the biggest mistake players make will cost them the most money. Therefore the biggest mistake is folding the best hand in a large pot.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
Therefore the biggest mistake players make will cost them the most money. Therefore the biggest mistake is folding the best hand in a large pot.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think it's pretty clear that he doesn't mean the mistake that is biggest per individual time you make it; he means the mistake that adds up to the biggest loss over the long run. Obviously, folding a winning hand once in a huge pot will be more costs than playing an outkicked hand once, but that is fairly uninteresting and irrelevent. The interesting thing is the biggest mistake in terms of hurting your hourly win/ loss rate. If you think that the biggest mistake most poker players make is folding too much, then I think you have a very, very, very inaccurate view of poker.

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
think it's pretty clear that he doesn't mean the mistake that is biggest per individual time you make it

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont

[ QUOTE ]
he means the mistake that adds up to the biggest loss over the long run.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where does it say this?

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously, folding a winning hand once in a huge pot will be more costs than playing an outkicked hand once,

[/ QUOTE ]

So we agree

[ QUOTE ]
but that is fairly uninteresting and irrelevent

[/ QUOTE ]

How is this irrelevant?

[ QUOTE ]
If you think that the biggest mistake most poker players make is folding too much, then I think you have a very, very, very inaccurate view of poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are right. I do have an inaccurate view of mistakes in poker. Perhaps you can illustrate this as you seem to have more experience.

[BradL]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
your avatar is disturbing

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[/ QUOTE ]

[reddred]

I think the biggest hold em mistake you can make is poor hand selection. Somewhat related to Lou's assessment, but more poignent I think.

[LoaferGee12]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
your avatar is disturbing

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[axioma]

it kind of...turns me on... /images/graemlins/blush.gif

[axioma]

and in order to add something usefull to this thread, yes - the most costly long term mistake in holdem is playing to many hands PF.

[SinCityGuy]

The biggest mistake you can make -- and it's not even close -- is folding the best hand in a big pot.

[axioma]

and the most costly mistake, which i think is what we are talking about, is calling with hands you should have folded PF. and its not even close.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
think it's pretty clear that he doesn't mean the mistake that is biggest per individual time you make it

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont

[ QUOTE ]
he means the mistake that adds up to the biggest loss over the long run.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where does it say this?

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously, folding a winning hand once in a huge pot will be more costs than playing an outkicked hand once,

[/ QUOTE ]

So we agree

[ QUOTE ]
but that is fairly uninteresting and irrelevent

[/ QUOTE ]

How is this irrelevant?

[ QUOTE ]
If you think that the biggest mistake most poker players make is folding too much, then I think you have a very, very, very inaccurate view of poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are right. I do have an inaccurate view of mistakes in poker. Perhaps you can illustrate this as you seem to have more experience.

[/ QUOTE ]
A mistake that costs you $1000 every time you make it (on average) and that comes up once ever 1000 hours ends up costing you $1/hr. A mistake that costs you $10 every time you make it and comes up once per hour ends up costing you $10/hr. Since our goal in poker (or at least my goal) is to maximize our win rate, the latter mistake is the bigger leak because it costs me more money in the long run. I understand that each time I make the $1000 I lose more than each time I make the $10 mistake. As you say, we agree on that. But that is irrelevent because in the long run, it really is the smaller mistake. Authors like Krieger are trying to help their readers maximize their win rate, which means that they are more interested here in the $10 mistake and how to avoid it. There is obviously a sense in which you can play cute linguistic games and say that the other mistake is bigger, but I think it is clear to most people that this sense of the word isn't what interests Krieger or his readers. Most players lose much more money overall by playing too loose than by playing too tight. This is why they lose. This is what he is trying to address. Pretending that the biggest mistake most players make is playing too tight would be inaccurate and unhelpful.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
The biggest mistake you can make -- and it's not even close -- is folding the best hand in a big pot.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree with that this is the biggest on a per-incident basis, but it's not nearly as big as some people here think. I've seen some people say that the size of this mistake "is the whole pot" which is completely untrue. This sort of thinking is what we call "results-oriented" and is very dangerous. What matters when evaluating a mistake is how much EV you have given up. It is very rare for someone to fold when they realistically had a 100% chance of winning the pot, given the information available to them. It's more common to, for example, fold when the pot is offering you 15-1 and your chance of being ahead is 10%. This is certainly a large mistake, but in the long run this does not "cost you the whole pot" anymore than folding a hand preflop that would have ended up winning costs you the whole pot. Evaluating EV based on what cards your opponent ended up having is a dangerous path to go down and will lead to a lot of fault anaylsis.

[Victor]

Playing too many hands is probably the most common mistake.

Not betting or raising (preflop included might rival it.

[Rah]

Excellent post

[bilyin]

You should visit "www.facialabuse.com"

[Custer]

The biggest mistake you can make as a holdem player is taking Lou Kreiger's advice.

[MelK]

[ QUOTE ]
For Lou I thought it was writing a book about hold'em in the first place, so people now know he doesn't know what he is talking about in that game.



[/ QUOTE ]

For the money he's made on that book, I'd accept being known as an incompetent HE player. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[MelK]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
your avatar is disturbing

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess she just couldn't keep in Hopey's man-juice. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[theRealMacoy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
your avatar is disturbing

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[/ QUOTE ]

ditto

can you make it run in reverse
maybe spew and then back in
spew and back in
spew and....

oh now i don't feel so well

[1pokerkinghero]

Dude, that has got to be the most GROSS icon/avitar I have ever seen...

[HopeydaFish]

[ QUOTE ]
Dude, that has got to be the most GROSS icon/avitar I have ever seen...

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you should find more disturbing -- that I chose to use it as my avatar, or that someone actually took the time to program such a monstrosity. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[slavic]

This is certainly a large mistake, but in the long run this does not "cost you the whole pot" anymore than folding a hand preflop that would have ended up winning costs you the whole pot.

You hid this statement under too much prose. Just so everyone has a fair shot of "getting it" let's pull it out and highlite it.

Playing dominated hands is a terrible mistake. On average you laying even money on a 3 To 1 proposition, and you'll have the option of making this mistake 85 times out of 100 hands.

How often do you have a choice of making a big fold? Maybe once a session if you play long enough?

[PhatPots]

I don't think it is the biggest mistake you can make. Thats for sure. We pretty much all know the biggest mistake is playing too many hands (but that is more of a beginner mistake). I could see kicker trouble as being one of the more advanced mistakes players make, but still not the biggest........... you disappoint me Lou

Cheers,
Pots