Starting hands theory
 

I have just started studying Harrington on holdém volume 1 and have some question regarding starting hands and opened pots. I like to know if I have understood the theory in this part correctly.

Harrington outline three playing styles and the starting requirements to open a pot when you are First in. He also discusses the Gap concept, and I guess my questions are about how to use it in regard to the different playing styles.


Assume I know nothing about my opponents.
Also assume 10 handed play.
I’m in MP3.
Early players fold
MP1 call BB
MP2 folds


First:

Lets say I have chosen to play according to style 1, conservative. What should I do?
If I understood the theory correctly I should raise with early position hands, and call with middle position hands.

Second

Say I have chosen to play according to playing style 2, aggressive. What should I do?

I suppose this is my key question. Should I fall back to playing style 1 hands and raise only with early position style 1 hands. And call with style 1 middle position hands?

If I have understood the theory correctly I should revert back to style 1 when someone already has opened the pot due to the gap concept. I’m I right?

Re: Starting hands theory
 

[ QUOTE ]
I suppose this is my key question. Should I fall back to playing style 1 hands and raise only with early position style 1 hands. And call with style 1 middle position hands?

[/ QUOTE ]

The answer to your question is that you probably have it right. HOWEVER, note that the aggressive or super-aggressive style is going to give you a lot of really tough/marginal post-flop decisions. Judging by the tone of your post and the fact that you're still thinking in terms of "early position hands", etc. I would STRONGLY recommend that you play no looser than the conservative style as outlined in the book (and you should almost certainly be playing tighter than that if you're talking about short-stacked MTTs or most online sit-n-gos) until you have a feel for when you can push marginal hands and develop more card sense.