Question about post flop experts.

[beekeeper]

Thanks, Rosencrantz. Yours, and everyone's responses are sure to be helpful. I think they'll help me analyze my play and also help me decide which hands, from which position, I might try to add to my starting hand selection. Thanks again, all, for the excellent feedback.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

You're reading too much into this post. Don't design you strategys for playing based on other people playing correctly. You base it on playing donks and make adjustments as you move up.

[bholdr]

just thought i'd pop in and add my 2c:

a lot of times when watching poker and hearing about the pros that rely on their ability to outplay opponents post-flop, they're referring to stars like Hellmuth, Farha, Hansen, etc: players that see a LOT of flops, even with appearently weak hands, but still manage to beat the tighter players. if this is what you're referring to, read on:

the loose preflop/outplay opponents post-flop idea/strategy applies to all games, not just high limits and big tournaments, as some have suggested in the past. since a skilled player makes better decisions more often, some hands that would be long-term losers for a weak player become profitable for an expert (again, long-term). Say, playing Kx suited in LHE, for example- over time, weak players lose a lot on hands like that, but a very good player knows how to squeze enough value out of the times that it hits to cover the cost of playing them in the first place). So, especially in NL, experts can play weaker, marginal, sometimes even trash hands, and show a profit on them.

pzon's post in this thread is a good list of the ways that experts turn weak hands into winners with superior post-flop play. nice use of the [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]s as bullet points, too. i'm totally stealing that.

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I'd like to mix up my play more, play a wider range of hands, and not bet so predictably, but my competitors seem to know when I have a modest hand.


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the benifits of playing more hands are:

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]- it makes it harder for your opponents to read your hand
[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]- when they know you'll play weak hands, they'll give more action on your monsters- this is another source of profit from playing weak hole cards; even if playing, say, J7 offsuit, in NL may be a long term-loser, the action it'll get the expert when he gets bullets may factor into his descision to play more garbage hands like that.
[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]-you'll sometimes hit big on harmless-looking flops and get paid off.

disadvantages:
[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]-higher varaince (i think- anyone know why?)
[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]- gotta know what you're doing
[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]- get dominated a lot more often

for a limit player, i'd have to say that a loose preflop strategy is almost always a recipie for disaster, but in NL it can be very very profitable in the right kind of games. like, limp with a lot of garbage in a game where there's rarely a raise preflop, try to hit a big hand on the flop, get paid off, repeat.

but, like rosencrantz said:
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Me: can't play that situation very well.
Professional: can.

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B