[sam h]

"If you are new to big bet always bet/raise exactly the pot."

I can see the merits of advising a new player to do this, but ultimately I disagree. I think new players should start at online microlimits and get familiar with all the options in their big bet toolbox. I don't see value in restricting yourself to only betting the pot at microlimits but nor would I advise playing for bigger money if you're going to handicap yourself like this.

"Unless the stacks are short, pre-flop doesn't matter."

While its true that the important decisions are made after the flop in big bet, preflop does matter quite a bit IMO. Of course you wouldn't want to only raise big pairs, especially if there were deep stacks and good players in the game. But if you never raise preflop you give up a lot in big bet, IMO.

"Big bet Hold'em is a game of the nuts, and anything else is a bluff"

I really disagree with this. If you wait for the nuts, you may end up blowing dust off your chips when you finally do play. That's not to say that you should go too far with TPTK. But value betting is important in big bet. I think the best big bet players don't necessarily craftily trap and stack others that much more often than average players. But they certainly chip away by value betting and bluffing more often.

Other than that, I agree with most of what you said, although I might have added an eleventh point noting that position in big bet is a lot more important than in limit - position in the hand, position versus the big stacks, etc.

Nice post though. I like your game and I think you've been a real addition to the forum in the last couple months.