[ArtVandelay]

I agree that once you have experience you can make lots of extra money by varying your bet size. My point was simply that you are not giving up too much by sticking to just pot, and more importantly... I've started playing big bet online recently (I've been playing 2/4 NLH, 5/5 PLH, and 5/5 PLO live for over a year now), and I can't believe how transparent some of the players (even in the online 2/4 games) are with the size of their bets. I pick up so many pots just because my opponent tells me his hand with his bet size and I can play accordingly. It is fair though that I may be too extreme in my advice about this on this forum.

My thing about pre-flop not mattering was primarily to dispell the myth in part created by the short stacks in tournaments that big bet is about waiting for a big starter and pushing all-in before the flop. In limit if you never fold AA post-flop you can still be a winning player, but in big bet it's absurdly easy to lose all your money because you can't get over that you started with a big hand.

Of course calling is an important part of the game. I'm just noting that big bet should not go bet-call, check-bet-call, etc. all the time like it does in limit.

If you've never played with your opponents before then at least it's fair because they don't know anything about you; but you need to learn about their play as fast as they learn about yours.

twodimes.net is an excellent website for running poker simulations, and simply using it to analyze hands you've played or just situations you're interested in will add up pretty quickly.