Are they serious?

From an article found at http://www.pokerpages.com/articles/players/betem-callem-raisem01.htm


Counter-strategy apparently refers to countering against players who play according to HPFAP. It's only two paragraphs and my comments follow.


"Our recommended counter-strategy only allows playing Group I hands (1-16) without regard to the player's position at the table. Upon special situations, Group II hands may be played at the pre-flop stage. Following are the Group I and II hands that may be played. No other hand may be played under any circumstance.


PLAYABLE PRE-FLOP HANDS


Group I Hands

1. AA 9. AK

2. AK 10. KQs

3. QQ 11. ATs

4. JJ 12. KJs

5. AKs 13. AQ

6. TT 14. 99

7. AQs 15. QJs

8. AJs 16. KTs


The Group I hands listed above constitute the top 16 ranked starting two-card Hold'em hands. The hands are ranked in accordance to their strength.


Group II Hands


Face Cards: AJ, AT, KQ, KJ ***(20, 24, 22, 27)


Pairs: 88, 77 ***(17, 31)


Suited: A9s - A2s; K9s - K2s; QTs - Q2s; JTs-J2s ***(19, 25, 18, 21)

*** Rankings of starting two-card hands…..


The Group II hands listed above are only to be played in special situations that afford the player the opportunity to take advantage of favorable "hand to pot" odds, aggressive play gambits and to confuse your opponents. "


Is this as insane as I think it is? Am I misunderstanding something or do they recommend never playing any hands other than the ones they listed under any circumstances?


Did I misread or do they explicitly recommend ignoring positional considerations? An earlier paragraph in the article spent considerable time denigrating the HPFAP starting hand section because it weighted position too heavily when considering your starting hand.


LOL! If anything, I've often felt that HPFAP talks too loose in early position for typical games. These guys (bettem raisem foldem) are trying to suggest I should IGNORE position? OH MY GOD.


Also, the article is preceded by a lengthy, and extremely boring, fictionalized account of the life of mr Bettem Raisem Fold'em. This is, indeed, the worst poker article I've ever read, even worse than "A Poker Player in Therapy".


natedogg

In the second part of the article it states, after discussing why you must fold suited cards whenever you don't flop a four flush:


"If you should flop four of a kind, a full house, trips or a straight, consideration should be given to continuing with the hand. "


This is clearly a joke and as someone who often points out when people miss the humor of a post, I apologize to the authors. Well done!


natedogg

How to play the turn and river: (BTW, as far as I can tell from the article, you will never be here with a drawing hand, only a made hand).


"TURN & RIVER STRATEGY


At the turn and river stages, the difficult decisions have been made and your hand should be an extremely strong hand and have a high probability of wining"


Here comes my favorite part:


"If you cannot raise, you should consider folding. There should be no checking since to continue you must have the best or Nut hand. The check-raising gambit allows a free card if your opponents also check. You do not want this to occur since your goal is to build a large pot and not allow draw-outs. "


Let me repeat that. Your goal is to build a large pot and not allow draw-outs. If only I had known! All this time I was building large pots and sometimes allowing draw outs! I'm a fool!


I need to work on my skills at getting four or five people to play for many bets while all simultaneously drawing dead to my hand.


"These, the turn and river, are the stages of the game when you should be very aggressive. Conversely, if you suspect that your hand is no longer the NUT you must fold. "


Yes, that's right. If you think your hand is no longer the nuts, you should fold on the turn or river.


natedogg

nate, see http://www.twoplustwo.com/cgi-bin/newforums/holdem.pl?read=76980 for mason-talk