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Old 03-31-2005, 07:59 PM
detruncate detruncate is offline
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Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 680
Default Re: A post about the first two cards

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Great post! Thanks for the insight from experience! Question: At what level do you think your pf advice becomes less valuable ie: 1/2?, 2/4?, 3/6?,...? Also, how applicable could your advice be for low limit live play? Thanks in advance!

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This is exactly the wrong way to think about it. It's not about "raise in LP because Greg said so," you should think about what he's trying to teach you.

The strength of your hand is dependent on the specific circumstances you find yourself in. This is too complicated to ever completely discuss in book form. Guidelines are designed to help you keep out of big trouble by giving you basic guidance on average plays. The discussion in SSH about how to evaluate your hand is much more helpful than the charts.

Greg is trying to help you see how situational this all is. You usually limp small pocket pairs in loose/passive pf games because you expect to be able to see the flop cheaply with lots of company -- since you'll most often have many opponents, your hand is not terribly likely to hold up UI when you're dealing with pp<5. However, when it's folded to you on the button, you know you're going to have at most 2 opponents + position + blind money to go after. All of a sudden things are very different, and a raise is often in order. Contrast this with being folded to in MP1, where a fold is often correct. What's the difference?

Why would you raise A8o when folded to in LP when everything tells you to stay away from Ax? What sort of situations would you be comfortable playing suited connectors/1-gaps? The point is that you should work on thinking about these things in context rather than simply following a chart. However good it is, it can only ever make basic assumptions re. what will most often be the case when you're dealt a particular hand -- its usefulness is therefore directly proportional to the degree to which the assumptions apply at that moment.

It's sort of like people asking what limits SSH is applicable to. If you understand the concepts it discusses, you'll be able to recognize when to apply them regardless of what limit you're playing.

There's a wide range of .5/1 games on the Party network. More to the point, the games change from hand to hand. Is it a shootout between 3 TAGs, or two maniacs and a LP-P? Huge difference. If you don't learn what makes a hand playable in context, you'll never achieve more than marginal success.

"The money is made post-flop" assumes a certain degree of pre-flop proficiency. Arguments like whether limping or raising AJo pf is better aren't very interesting due to the fact that there's not much to choose between them. You're giving up a lot, though, if you routinely play hands you should fold (or vice versa).

PF play is by far the easiest to learn. That doesn't mean it's easy. It also doesn't mean you shouldn't think about it. For most novice players, there's a lot of money to be made through improved pf play. This is because the mistakes are relatively large. Once you become more comfortable with the basics, there's much more money to be found post-flop. It also gets a whole lot harder.

Work on your fundamentals. Learn the theory. Start with pf play. And thank Greg for taking the time to help by following his example.
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