[soah]

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There are easier ways to make a lot of money in NL than taking 55/45 edges.

[/ QUOTE ] It is very hard to make lots of money in holdem if you are willing to give up a 55/45 edge.

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This seems to imply that you will rarely get a chance to put much money in the pot with better than 55/45 odds. This is ridiculous. The types of players that are willing to push preflop with AK are going to give you plenty of opportunities to get your money in as a huge favorite against them. El Diablo's statement is much more accurate than yours... taking these 55/45 shots will win you more money than not taking them. But that hardly means you won't still make plenty of money without taking them.

The notion that you should never pass up a +EV gamble is great, assuming that you have an infinite bankroll. But in reality, no one has an infinite bankroll, and many players will stretch their bankroll a bit thin at times. If losing a couple of 55/45 all-ins means you must drop down in stakes in order to continue playing comfortably, then you would be correct to pass up some of those opportunities, if you KNOW that there will be better gambles available if you are patient. Research the "Kelly Criterion" for more information.

Here's a fun game for you: Suppose you're given a $10,000 bankroll and you are given the chance to play 2000 hands of heads-up NL poker at whatever stakes you desire. At the end of each hand, you will each reset your stacks to 100 times the big blind. And to make things simple for you, your opponent is going to go all-in preflop on every single hand. You are even given a chart which tells you the equity of your hand versus a random hand. What would be the optimal strategy for this game? Here's a hint: It's not to play with 50/100 blinds and go all-in the first time you have at least a 51% chance of winning.

There was a poll a while back in the Mid-High Limit forum recently in which many people said they would give up as much as 30% of their winrate in order to completely eliminate variance from their results. Knowingly passing up situations with very marginal EV is not going to cut your winrate by 30% (unless of course your winrate is extremely low), but it will certainly cut your variance a lot. If someone chooses to sacrifice part of their winrate in order to reduce variance, I don't see how someone else can tell them that what they are doing is right or wrong -- they are aware of what they are doing, and it's their own choice to make based upon their tolerance for risk and the size of their bankroll. Someone playing 5/10 on a $15,000 bankroll simply cannot take the same risks as someone with a $150,000 bankroll. Maybe it cuts their winrate from 10bb/100 to 8bb/100... but this "suboptimal" strategy would still be better for them than dropping down to 2/5 where they can push more edges and win 10bb/100.