Starting hands: Article contrary to the "Book"

[The _Grifter]

" I'm not suggesting it isnt proper, by the way, but when one source conflicts with another why place your trust with S&M? "

It's not really a matter of trusting S&M....It's a matter of agreeing with them. My agreeing with them stems from the fact that when I read a passage from their book(s)I can look back from my own experiences and then come to a judgement on whether or not I think they're correct.

I should also point out that I firmly believe that what's written in these books will only make sense when you've gained a vast amount of experience.

[amtannn]

I just read "A New Guide to the Starting Hands in Texas Hold'em Poker". It disagrees with S&M about the strength of various starting hands. Anyone have any input??

[The _Grifter]

Ranking hands is a very difficult process to analyze because of all the variables a player must consider. The reason why I don't look at any other starting hands, other than Sklansky's, is because I played a few years before ever reading a poker book. After reading HPFAP...I thought...well...yes, there was no need for me to go any further to improve my pre-flop play as far as reading anything other than HPFAP. In other words, I was good enough to figure out what worked before reading a book. Sklansky verified what I already knew.

...My point...why bother looking at something else when you have the proper strategy in front you ?

[amtannn]

How do you know the S&M strategy is proper? I'm not suggesting it isnt proper, by the way, but when one source conflicts with another why place your trust with S&M?

[Ed Miller]

Sklansky has refuted this article several times before. Search the archives. It's basically bunk.

[pudley4]

Are you referring to this article? (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/People/mummert/poker/)

S&M have responded to this article in previous posts. You can search for them on the forum.

More important that memorizing a "ranking" of hands, is knowing why certain hands are or are not playable in certain situations.

For example, in this article it states "33 and 22 are not worth playing". That's just flat out wrong, especially when they advise playing hands like A2o and K6o.

[758219]

"More important that memorizing a "ranking" of hands, is knowing why certain hands are or are not playable in certain situations."

There you have the right answer to most situations. That is the only thing that matters, that one understands by sure why play some hands in some situations and why not play some hands in some situations. But by all means, take advice also from those other rankings, I did and learned something; something worth in some situations like after a loose limper and/or vs. blinds and on the blind play. So, there are situations where more or less random generated anwers give better answers than one could just reason. After simulations one then goes thinking why the result was what it was, and why everyone doesn't fully agree with it. Understanding is most important at poker; one has to understand more and more, better and better.

[mvernon851]

Has anyone tried the starting requirements advocated in Phil's new book, "Play Poker Like the Pros"? I tried it in a low limit game and got killed. The problem I found is that in low limit, nobody really folds so even the basic strategy didn't work out.

Here's an example:

You're dealt 99 and "raise it up" from any position, a bunch of people call/raise,lo and behold out flops something like J42 and inevitably somebody has a J.

Maybe I was just having a really rough night or two but I managed to blow about $300 in a $1/2 game and that was after about 10 hours on the sim. Note that I was also able to read the opponents hands pretty well.

[AceHigh]

Starting hands don't exist in a vacuum. They have a context. S&M understand this. That's why they don't waste time worrying whether JTs is better than A8o or 33. It's more important to know how and when to play different hands than to worry about which hand is better than which.

[ResidentParanoid]

This is a quote from the article:

Although playing position is generally thought to be the most important factor in selection of starting hands in hold'em, it is not particularly important to the conclusions we've drawn here.

I stopped reading after I saw this.

[CrackerZack]

Phil says play like a maniac. you did, you missed, you got killed. the pattern will repeat itself with some "you did, you hit, you made a killing" involved, but more of the former than the latter. losing $300 in a 1-2 game is ridiculous. I've only seen it once before in a home game, with the craziest player in the game. He raises constantly, and never folds.

[Luke]

My feeling is that like just about everything else in poker, starting hands are based strongly on the situation. Many factors affect starting hand decisions: your current position, the general style of the players at your table, the style of players already in the hand, the players to act after you, the type of hand you hold, the other players' perception of you, etc.

As others have said, starting hand decisions do not exist in a vaccum. It is best for a player to have an understanding of the various factors and how they affect your decision, as opposed to memorizing a specific strategy.

I think S&M clearly address this notion and do the best job in preparing the reader to correctly evaluate most situations.

Luke