WLLH Dispute

[s_teiger]

Can someone explain the logic of when Jones says you can raise in late position w/ hands like A8o and A9o but you can't even limp w/ them. Or in early he says you can raise w/ AJs but you should fold AJo. I've never made money doing this and often I get reraised by someone in the blinds.

[Bob T.]

I think that you should raise both AJ off, and AJ suited in early position, if you aren't going to raise, I would tend to not raise with some of my suited AJ, but raise all of my nonsuited if I was going to play them.

In late position, the reason you can open raise with middle aces, is that you might win the blinds, or you might win the pot by betting the flop, or you might even make the best hand. By raising, you have three ways to win. If you limp with those hands, you can't win preflop, and it will be harder to win the pot on the flop and less rewarding if you do, so you have eliminated one way to win, and made the second way less likely.

[JTG51]

No, it can't be explained. I started a similar thread in the books and software forum a few months ago. I got some good responses if you are interested in looking it up.

It seem like there have been a whole bunch of posts about this subject lately.

[Lee Jones]

Well, I'll give you my logic and then you can decide if it makes sense or not.

Somebody else answered quite nicely the question about why you can raise with (e.g.) A9o in late position but you can't call with it early. The bottom line here is the most underrated factor in good poker playing: position. [1]

Basically, if you limp with your A9o early and there's a raise behind you, you're pretty unhappy. Let's assume that your opponent has either JJ or AQ. Well, you don't know if you want to flop an ace or a 9. The only flop that makes you pretty happy is one that has one of each (or two 9's or something similarly miraculous). And even if just a bunch of folks call, you're playing a marginal hand out of position.

Conversely, let's say that you're one in front of the button and it's folded to you. There are completely different stripes on this zebra. You know that you're going to be competing with, at most, three opponents. There's a very good chance that you have the best hand now. And a raise will probably win you the button (a huge tactical advantage) and perhaps the whole pot right there. Especially in the unlikely event that your opponents notice you play tight. And if somebody does call, well, you act after they do throughout the hand, and that's huge.

Quoting General Franks, "I'm sorry sir - what was your second question?" Oh - AJo vs. AJs.

AJo is a messy hand (I actually discuss it specifically in the second edition of WLLH). If you raise it early, you will probably limit the field to you and everybody who has a hand better than AJo. So I've found raising with it to be counterproductive. And again, position is everything. If 3-4 people fold in front of you and you're the first to play, then I think it's ducky to raise with AJo (Mason discussed just such a hand on the Mid-High stakes board recently).

AJs is different because you don't mind building a pot - the flush opportunity makes you happy to bring in a bunch of people. And realize that you don't have to actually hit your flush to win the pot.

For example, let's say you have Ac-Jc and the flop comes Tc-6d-2c. You're happy to get in a raising war with two or three opponents. Let's suppose that one has QT and the other has KK. With AJo, you'd be done with this flop immediately. But with the flush draw, you're going to the river. Now the turn is a total blank and the kings bet and you and the QT call. The river is a red ace. The kings check in disgust, as does the QT. You bet, get called in one or two places, and win a healthy pot.

So going in suited gives you not only the flush equity, but the legs to let other outs get there.

I hope that I explained my thinking well.

Regards, Lee

[1] I think Tommy Angelo needs to write a song about position, sung to the tune of "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof

[Louie]

Jones book is not very good. However...

A8 and A9, as with other trouble hands, do MUCH better when nobody else has a better hand. In early position you are probably beat so you should fold. In late position their chances do MUCH better when nobody in front chose to raise, indicating they may very well be the best hand. Note that he said YOU can raise, but did NOT (correctly) say you can CALL a raise.

No, I would not raise after callers.

- Louie

[deathtoau]

Jones book is not very good. However...

Personally, I have to disagree. I once was one of the "gamblers," folding rarely and losing lots of money. Then, after reading WLLH, I learned not to play my trash and have turned my game around. Now I win almost every session I play. Over my last 80 hours of play, my hourly rate is just under 3*BB per hour. My small investment in the book has payed me back hundreds of time over. His book is good enough for me.

[34TheTruth34]

Jones book is not very good

Please name any better book on low limit hold 'em. Or better yet, maybe you could write one...

[elysium]

hi s teiger,
what do we have here? lee jones book, hmmm. well steig, it's like any book. if you learn just one thing, then its worth the money. and hey, it's controversial in those borderline areas. some writer's are more combative and iconoclastic just to make you think. it might be some crazy i don't know whatever in vogue today. i get enough of it everyday from the newspapers to keep me pissed off and thinking angrily. more than enough, and how.

never approach a body of work with any preconceived notions. who knows, who knows, honestly, A9o? (lol) maybe, heads up against someone about to be thrown out of the casino, and you know they won't be around to finish the hand, and you have a good read on your opponent, and know that he is in an alcoholically induced black-out? we're talking about knowing for a fact; yes it's playable. it has positive ev, provided the bouncer has arrived.

[Ralle]

I think Jones' book is really good. As a book for a beginner I find it superior to Sklansky's Hold 'Em Poker, and also better than Krieger's Hold 'Em Excellence, although these two are also very good reads.

Especially I find the material in WLLH to be easy to understand and easy to read. For a beginning player these are major benefits. Jones' book has really helped my game.

[Louie Landale]

Its certainly better than nothing and certainly better than a lot of the other crap out there. Any book that gets normal gamblers playing more selectively is a good one.

But its inferior, but a lot, to all the 2+2 and Caro stuff. It has WAY too much questionable advise, bad logic, and inconsistencies with itself to be judged "good" by me.

- Louie

[jasonHoldEm]

Since everyone else is weighing in on the subject. I will too, I really like WLLH, granted I'm new to the game, and my knowledge therein isn't as superior as some of the folks who post here...but I think it is a GREAT introductory book for one main reason.

The writing style is much more approachable for a poker novice than something like TOP or HPFAP, I'm not speaking of strategy or what have you, I'm speaking of prose. For someone who knows nothing of the game, WLLH is a very good introductory text because you don't have to re-read the same paragraph five times to understand it. No offense to S&M, but I often find myself "crawling" through their books where I can "walk" through WLLH.

For me WLLH was the training wheels I needed to be able to (start to) tackle books like TOP and HPFAP (which obviously I'm still working on). I have a lot to learn about the game, but WLLH is what got me started. I say kudos to Lee Jones.

jHE

[jacobl]

I concur. Having read some Jones and some 2+2 the Jones book will be the book I lend to people who ask me for a good introductory book. I think its language is more parsable to newcomers and is certainly enough to get you started. I also enjoyed the way Jones' approaches his justifications/advice, even if many people say that some of that advice is flawed. Oh, one other qualm I have is mine fell apart after one read. I have to say the 2+2 books are much more rugged, enough to take on camping trips.

jacob

[jasonHoldEm]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Oh, one other qualm I have is mine fell apart after one read. I have to say the 2+2 books are much more rugged, enough to take on camping trips.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed...I just pulled out WLLH after reading this thread for a quick re-read and my pages are starting to separate from the spine...oh well...

[Zag]

To all of you who jumped on Louie's comment that Jones' book is not very good, I think that maybe he was making a joke, since his post immediately followed Lee's. (The joke fell flat, but that would make it just like most of my jokes.) Or maybe he is just a moron. Certainly his post was bordering on semi-literate. Mostly, he duplicated Lee's comment, but far less cogently.

In the only new point he made, "Note that he said YOU can raise, but did NOT (correctly) say you can CALL a raise." his punctuation makes his meaning unclear. I'm not exactly sure if he is saying that calling a raise would be correct, or if he is saying that NOT calling is correct. Certainly, you should not call a raise with AJo, because you would often be calling a raise from a hand that has you dominated.