Expert vs. Strong player, where is the advantage?

[Boopotts]

I won't speak to NL games, but in limit it will show up in two spots.

1) How they handle the small blind, and
2) How they play the turn when they have position.

[Deorum]

The answer lies in who the strong player is. When talking
about an expert player, we generally mean somebody who
excels in every aspect of the game. That is, the expert
will almost always make the best decision given the game
conditions, the situation, and his or her reads on the other
players. A strong player is someone who is lacking when
compared to the expert player in at least one of these
areas. Perhaps he or she does not read hands as well, or
does not understand head up play on the river as well.
Where the expert gains an advantage over his opponent is
dependant upon the area in which the strong player is
lacking. An expert is defined as somebody who excels in all
areas of the game, whereas a strong player is not as easily
defined. Where the expert gains an edge is based on that
definition, whatever it winds up being.

[Zetack]

I'm thinking just about limit.

Implicit in the discussion seems to be the idea the the expert's advantage is small, so when you say strong I'm assuming not a run of the mill strong player but truly very strong, say a hairsbreath away from being an expert player.

So I would assume the strong player to be very good at all the skills involved in limit hold em...Hand reading, oppenent reading, probabilities, straightforward play, tricky play, mixing it up, adjusting to table conditions, ability to stay off tilt etc etc etc.

The expert would be better than very good at all those areas. However, I think the marginal utility of being slightly better in those areas--since better than very good is only ta tiny improvement--would likely have no or at least negligible affect in limit hold em. In other words, despite the difference in skill, it would be too small to have a measurable affect.

In other words, being fractionally better at reading people probably won't give you a different read than the very strong player, being fractionally better at probabilities won't give you a different idea of the odds, being fractionally better at not tilting won't cause the guy who's very good at not tilting to tilt,etc.

Now perhaps those tiny differences add up to something in NL but I suspect they do not in limit.



--Zetack