"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."


Don't agree plenty written about it in other books, on this forum, Abdul essays, RGP posts, etc.


"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."


The value and role of the groups as a learning device has been discussed thoroughly and completely both here and on RGP. Mason has repeatedly stated on this forum that hands should be played according to their intrinsic value.


" 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. "


I would tend to disagree with you here. It's also costly to assume a bunch of live ones play well.


"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."


I don't agree the ratio of world class players to the rest is so small that it's easy to see how it could hurt a lot.


"You would probably just lose the blinds the first round, but you can quickly adjust from there."


If it only takes you one orbit to evaluate the table accurately how could you lose 10-20BB?