HEPFAP Question--Starting Hands

[WildmanTX]

Hello...I need some help decipering Sklansky-ese. I'm in the chapter entitled "The First Two Cards: Early Position" at the top of pg. 19...

"Futhermore, as the game gets more aggressive, you should discard some of the weaker Group 4 hands such as AJ and KTs."

Is Sklansky continuing the discussion of playing in loose games, or has he jumped back to typical games? Or, maybe he's discussing all games in general? I can't tell. What's everyone's take on this paragraph?

Thanks--WildmanTX

[mosch]

He appears to still be talking about loose games, but ones that are loose-aggressive rather than the loose-passive games he's discussing in the paragraph before that.

I think the advice applies fairly well to any aggressive game though, not just loose ones.

[riverunner]

He is not referring to loose games he is referring to aggressive games. Loose and aggressive are two different things. I would say he is talking about games where there is a lot of pre-flop raising.

[MicroBob]

i pretty much dodge playing these in EP unless i feel there is a decent chance of not getting raised.
if the table is THAT passive that my EP bet doesn't get raised then it can be worth a shot.

since i am frequently multi-tabling online when playing limit, i wind up folding these quite a bit because i might not have that great a read on the table.
additionally, i think my play has improved since p-tracker pointed out that i was playing these hands less than ideally (which i suspected anyway).


the obvious danger with these hands....as is pointed out several times in HEFAP....is that they can make second best hands...and that can be rather costly.
conversely, in the situations where they are the best hand, they are likely to not pay-off a whole lot....even if you have one of those Ace-any players, you still have to bet cautiously because you can't really be certain that your hand is best.

these are related to the reasons why you can ditch these hands in LP if there has been a raise and/or re-raise (depending on the types of players that did the raising).
if you have the best hand it is difficult to know your hand is best. and there are scenarios where your hand looks potentially decent when you are far behind to the point if perhaps drawing practically dead.

they are awfully nice when you flop the straight though since they are modestly concealed.

[RydenStoompala]

Aggressive does not just refer to a lot of pre-flop raising. It means there could be a lot of pre-flop raising and then the players are aggressive on the flop and especially the turn. It's an early position suggestion that AJ and KTs, starters that hold up well in less agressive games and shorthanded, are no longer as valuable. I know exactly how crappy these can be in an aggressive game because you can call in early position, have to mark it up two more bets when it comes around and then the person with trips or two pair knocks you silly for even trying with the cheese. Aggressive games or partially aggressive games require slight modifications in behavior, something you should be doing anyway as the game changes. The book's suggestion is a good one.

[Styles]

An aside: once I got PokerTracker the whole AJo in EP thing cleared right up.

Thanks Again, PokerTracker_Pat! You rock!

A game is not Loose or Aggressive, it's (Loose or Tight)+(Passive or Aggressive). The AJo is based strictly on the latter by my reading and could still be a Loose Game or a Tight Game. The "typical game" concept is a mistake/trap IMHO. I see many, many faulty assumptions based off of labels such as "low limit game" and what "typical means" when I read different threads. The concept of "typical game" should be removed as I think it's a stumbling block to most people (or maybe that's a good thing) /images/graemlins/grin.gif