A Newbie view of a Giant:

[Baulucky]

My introduction to poker was a series of articles by Abdul Jalib (Michael Hall). I didn't understand anything to begin with, but read it anyway because of his reputation as a master BJ player. This weekend I took a break and went to the beach with my family. I also took a PL/NL book by Ciaffone and Abdul's worn out, old articles. It was my "light" poker weekend. I've played some 800 hours of "play money" and low limits at various games in the last 6 months, mostly limit holdem, and have read at least once the main books available on poker (about 11 of them). Didn't re-read the NL book, but many of Abdul's concepts stuck out of the text and I wanted to share them with this forum that has helped me a lot in several ways.

WARNING: This is the view of a 1-2 limit player that considers himself at the beginning of his professional poker career.

Fundamental Concepts of Limit Holdem: (Baulucky's views of Abdul Jalib's main articles).

1-"Due to the effect of community cards, hold'em is a game of domination. Lure your opponents into playing dominated hands while avoiding dominated situations yourself.". Abdul Jalib.

My current view of this: If you start with the best hand, you are favorite to end with the best hand. Avoid being dominated like the plague. This is the most automatic part of holdem, the pre-flop, also the place where it is cheapest to end the hand and where the most expensive mistakes originate.

2-"If you have the best of it on additional money going into the pot, you should try to maximize the additional money going into the pot. If given the money in the pot by the end you have odds to chase, you should at least call.". Abdul Jalib.

Self explanatory. You can infer if you have the best hand and BET/CHECK-RAISE or calculate EXACTLY if you have odds to chase and CALL.

3-"Your opponents cannot fold if you never bet or raise. Betting or raising usually is worth at least 4 outs, sometimes 20 or more outs, in terms of increasing your chance of winning the pot." Abdul Jalib.

Self-explanatory. Agressive is better.


Many things that happened over many hands have now "clicked" in my brain. I hope many of you find this concepts useful.

[dogsballs]

2-"If you have the best of it on additional money going into the pot, you should try to maximize the additional money going into the pot. If given the money in the pot by the end you have odds to chase, you should at least call.". Abdul Jalib.

Self explanatory. You can infer if you have the best hand and BET/CHECK-RAISE or calculate EXACTLY if you have odds to chase and CALL.



I like Abdul's stuff too.

It's not just about chasing and calling, here. He's talking about things like capping the flop with a flush draw against a few opponents, or raising 88 on the button preflop in a family pot.

[Webster]

Well - good stuff BUT - you will see VERY VERY few hands ended pre-flop and remember - every raise makes a bad hand a little better odds-wise.

A lot of what Abdul says is not fore micro-limit games BUT are good ideas.

[dogsballs]

Well - good stuff BUT - you will see VERY VERY few hands ended pre-flop and remember - every raise makes a bad hand a little better odds-wise


Raising the 88 preflop isn't 'cos you're trying to get your opponents to fold - if that's what you meant, I'm not sure.

It's a fallacy that the raise makes the bad hands better odds-wise. Think about it. Where is this new value of theirs coming from? They're all paying the raise as well, and a bad hand stays a bad hand; it doesn't pick up equity just because the second time they pay preflop is giving them 15-1 instead of 7-1 the first time. So when you have more than your fair share of equity, get the money in. That's what Abdul's saying, and it's very valid for small limits, when you see many multiway pots. Much more so than his other stuff.