"all other refinements have smaller incremental value unless you are making major starting mistakes that carry forward with you throughout the hand"


Starting hands are the fundamentals. You have to make this decision on every hand, yet I don't think enough has been written about it. S&M has the hand groupings. It says, "In a tough game, it is probably best to discard even the Group 4 hands." But what about Group 3 hands, JTs and QJs are very poor hands UTG in a tough game. S&M does say you should raise AQ, but most people just memorize the groupings and mistakenly play each hand in one group exactly the same way. HPFAP also says you should first assume that the game is typical. I think this is a huge mistake. You could easily be down 10-20BB before you determine that this is a tough table. This is why I keep asking, "How will 10 world class players play against each other?" The smart move would be to assume everyone is a world class player. You would probably just lose the blinds the first round, but you can quickly adjust from there.