Abdul's Pre-flop Essay

[AmericanAirlines]

I'm sure everyone here has read Abdul's pre-flop stuff over on posev. I know I have.

Are there any opinions here about it's validity?

From posters or 2+2 authors?

Perhaps old postings? I have a feeling it must have been thoroughly disected somewhere in it's history 'round here.

Sincerely,
AA

[Ed Miller]

My opinion is that Abdul's preflop advice is very solid.

[bernie]

interesting....i dont think its any better or worse than S & M...just a matter of style and opinion. he has some great ideas and thoughts...after hearing clarky chatter about it enough i decided to look at it again....this time a little closer. it's well worth the read.

one thing i do find interesting though, is that once again, it seems to depend on who writes it....

ive seen some of his concepts on here long ago, that were written by other(some former) posters and they got flamed for it...but then this comes out and it's all of a sudden groundbreaking.....hmmm...THAT i find interesting

oh well....give it a look...

b

[Clarkmeister]

"but then this comes out and it's all of a sudden groundbreaking"

I could be wrong, but I think the preflop stuff on his site was written in 1999. Not exactly brand new.

Abdul has since said on various RGP posts that he would change some of the preflop section if he were writing it today.

Anyhoo - I think its good.

[bernie]

i never said it wasnt good....i agree with most of it. and it's a good way of looking at that part of the game a little differently.

the point i was making was it depends on who writes it, how willing others are at accepting it. before id heard of it and checked it out, long ago, id seen some of his ideas that were expressed by other posters who got lambasted for it. sounds like im making a big deal of it, but some of them really got flamed pretty good. now whether some of those posters were indirectly quoting him or not, i dont know...

which is one reason i personally, will rarely reference any book. ive responded to posts where players say im full of it blah blah blah, until i used to mention the page and paragraph of what book it was in...then it was, OH! well, THEN it's ok....ive seen this with other responders too, to a certain extent.

another example, since im off topic here anyway, is a bob morgan hand...now i dont know bob, and have nothing against him. this is just observation here...

he posts a hand where he plays completely wrong, and fishlike, yet gets praise. yet, anyone else lesser known, gets flamed about what an idiot they are for even thinking about playing that way. cracks me up...

different strokes, i guess

anyway....it's a good read, and as stated above, should help broaden one's game by looking at it differently...

cya's

b

[Sredni Vashtar]

Dear fellow poster,

Sredni has overheard many discussions on twoplustwo regarding Abdul preflop essay. He has made some corrections to it, and below is one of them. Sredni is not able to find some of the others, nor can verify that this correction is the most up to date. Another poster here, who shall not be named, has worked on strategies using TTH as well. These sims indicated that Abdul's were slightly off, but not all that much.

Sredni himself slightly prefers S&M preflop strategy over Abdul. Bear in mind that preflop strategy lends itself to certain post flop strategies, so using S&M preflop and an more aggressive approach post flop might not work as well.

These considerations (or usually lack thereof) are what often foul up the simulations. It is not fair to test an S&M preflop strategy while the sim players do not properly adjust their post flop strategies to maximize the theorectical preflop losses, usually due to less aggression. Also, balancing comes into play.

Sredni might suggest to you to stick with S&M strategy, but certainly apprise yourself of all available knowledge.

You can find archives of Abduls stuff on Rec.gambling.poker, using google.

Good luck.

Sredni Vashtar.





Re: Holdem Preflop...Abdul
Posted by: Abdul Jalib (AbdulJ@PosEV.com)
Posted on: Tuesday, 9 January 2001, at 6:24 p.m.


1. For 3-6, use the loose game advice, probably even if you think the game is "tight," because a tight 3-6 is not my idea of a tight game. Drop the plays that are made for the sake of balance/camouflage.

2. Yes, I do try to maximize expected value, but note that the best way to lower your variance is to fold preflop, especially reverse implied odds hands like JT that I advise against playing. In low stakes games, you don't want respect, because you are going to get callers, so you might as well get a lot of callers. You really want people to think you're a maniac, so that they will all call when you jam with draws. So I don't suggest being too conservative, though again, do dump those trouble hands.

3. I tried to gloss over the big blind advice for the sake of brevity, because there are a zillion different situations. I'll try to summarize here. Facing a raise in the big blind, the basic idea is that you've got big implied odds to flop something, but you don't want to flop a dominated hand and pay off all the way. Heads up against a late raiser, you can just play to flop any pair, pretty much, but add in another player and suddenly any pair (or a weak ace high) is no good. Heads up against an early raiser, flopping a low pair is usually no good, so you must play very tight. With lots of players in, you can play for straights or flushes.

More precisely... Assuming there is no rake, versus a steal raise, call with 22, any two suited, any ace, K7+, and connectors 53+, but make sure you fold hands like Q3 and J3. You can reraise with hands like 66/KJs/AJ. Versus a steal raise and a cold caller, it bumps the requirements up to maybe 22/54s/A9/T9, and you need maybe 99/KQs/AQ to consider a reraise. Versus a tight early raiser, you need a very strong hand to call, maybe 88/KQs/AQ. Versus a raise and many cold callers, play any pair and any two suited and medium to big connectors, but make sure you muck A9, K9, and their friends. Reraise here with AA, KK, and AKs for sure, but also a lot of other suited aces and medium to big suited connectors; QQ and JJ can go either way, so I suggest just calling versus a tight raiser, 3-betting versus a loose raiser. Finally, if there is a rake or a risk of an early limp-reraise, you have to play tighter, particularly versus late raises.