[jackfrost]

[ QUOTE ]
Passing up those better-than-even-money situations is playing poorly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here is one example of many possible slightly better than even money bets I would pass on.
Say you are in the blind and you are against a poker player you have a good read on. He raises with AK but incorrectly plays his big pairs slowly trying to trick people or keep people in the pot. I'm sure you have encountered this guy before. So he reaises with AK and i'm in the blind with 73 offsuit. Just me and him, so the pot is laying me 1:3.5 but i'm only about a 1:2 dog. I clearly have the pot odds to call here, much better than 1:13 to 1:14, but I would be foolish to do so. You could also change this scenario into the simple button steal where your opponent would raise with any two cards and you are holding any mediocre hand, you are getting the odds to call most of the time, but most people wait for a better situation. With all of the disinformation in this game a good player will seek better situations.
There are thousands of more situations in poker that occur where i'm holding hands i don't play, but i have the pot odds to call. I don't thinking making this laydown and waiting for a better situation is a mistake.

If you play poker well, you can actually make a lot of bad hands break even or turn a small profit, everyday you play is going to be a roller coaster ride because you will be playing tons of hand and you really won't have a clue if you will turn a profit or break even that day. I've went through many phases in my poker career and have studied my hands extensively in pokertracker, I've realized that i'm better off not playing certain hands in early posistion, eventho they turn a tiny profit, i'm better off just waiting for them in better posistion and not having them lose money almost half the time.

[ QUOTE ]
No, you don't get enough safer bets. This is why established winners can easily have losing sessions, often have losing weeks, and occasionally have losing months.


[/ QUOTE ]

I pass on longshots frequently and i've been professional for over a year. I've never had a losing week. I have had many losing days but I don't deal well with losing and being irresponsible (waste money like crazy) doesn't allow me to have a losing week, I might end up playing over 100 hours that week to get my money back and compensate for my time, but never a losing week. If I was playing in real life and only playing 30 hands an hour, the possibility of a losing week would deffinetly be more likely but playing 300 hands an hour and having a losing week would require for me to be on tilt.

I play tighter than SSH suggests, and this is me passing up on situations with +EV. If what you say is true about not being able to pass on my longshots, both Ciaffone and I would not be able to turn a profit, but this is clearly not the case. Ciaffone passes on these all of the time and is good enough to write a great book. It is possible that he is a losing player, but from what i've read Ciaffone probably wins more than he loses.

[ QUOTE ]
NLHE has less variance for the same win rate. Nevertheless, for a solid winner in a soft online game, playing 100 hands of NLHE is very similar to getting all-in with QQ versus AK for a full 100 BB buy-in.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cmon now, your trying to say that when you play 100 hands at NL it is similar to a race situation. Maybe i'm just good, but when I play NL, especially in the game you described, i'm a huge favorite over my opponents. I am very patient and wait to catch them when I have the better hand. I do bet the pot and bluff frequently which is an action that has to be correct 50% of the time, but since it works somewhere around 75% of the time it is much better than even money. I'm not throwing my money around, i make educated decisions and to beat me the dealer has to set me up, someone has to make a mistake and outdraw me, be out played, or make a mistake myself. These things don't occur often which is why I win, if I was only taking races all day I would have a lot of losing days.