Great New Player Advice From a New Player

[fimbulwinter]

I was helping a new player out with a series of small stakes NL hands and had noticed overall that he was playing too passively. I explained to the best of my abilities why raising or folding is in general superior to calling, then he said this, which I thought was very profound:

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I think i get it. In holdem everyone gets the same hands long term and against any other player at the table they'll be better about half the time and worse the other half. When i have a better hand, i want to play a bigger pot, so i should raise, and when i have a worse hand, i don't want to pay him off, so i should fold. If i make bigger pots when I'm ahead, i take his money long term. Calling just doesn't make sense if you think about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

woah.

fim

[AKQJ10]

Sounds like someone with a really good intuitive feel for the game.

Wow great post, thanks for that bit. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Matt Williams]

Someone should pass that along to Slansky for his next book. No one could say it better.

[stu-unger]

NH fim

[LesWormMurphy]

I wouldn't say that calling is NEVER the right move, by far-- but generally speaking, aggressive poker is winning poker. If it's good enough to call, you should be raising.
Your buddy is clever.

[gulebjorn]

[ QUOTE ]
I was helping a new player out with a series of small stakes NL hands and had noticed overall that he was playing too passively. I explained to the best of my abilities why raising or folding is in general superior to calling, then he said this, which I thought was very profound:

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I think i get it. In holdem everyone gets the same hands long term and against any other player at the table they'll be better about half the time and worse the other half. When i have a better hand, i want to play a bigger pot, so i should raise, and when i have a worse hand, i don't want to pay him off, so i should fold. If i make bigger pots when I'm ahead, i take his money long term. Calling just doesn't make sense if you think about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

woah.

fim

[/ QUOTE ]

The trick is figuring out if you're playing the half where your hand is best, or where it's the worst /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Cooker]

They have already discussed this in several 2+2 books, but with a more techinical lingo. The technical jargon for this idea is that you want to imploy a non-selfweighting strategy. This essentially means that you increase the bet when the odds are more in your favor. The most obvious example of this is in black jack where card counters increase their bet when the count is favorable and decrease it when the count is not. In poker, it simply means make more money on your winners than you lose on your losers. The calling station is the ultimate self weighting strategy and this is why they are the most profitable opponents.

[tek]

[ QUOTE ]
This essentially means that you increase the bet when the odds are more in your favor. In poker, it simply means make more money on your winners than you lose on your losers.

[/ QUOTE ]

It also means reducing the number of decisions or wagers one makes