[DavidC]

I'm sure that my response started on topic, but it really wandered, so now I'm just writing up some general thoughts. Hope you guys don't mind.

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Excellent post.

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good preflop play is essential to being a winning poker player. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition to winning consistently.

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As a math guy, I couldn't have said this better myself. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I think the pitfalls of cold-calling cannot be de-emphazied.
I'm generally even more tight than the SSH recommendations for cold-calling. For example, I have no problem folding AQs in MP1 vs an UTG raiser. If I think he's a LAG, I reraise, neveer cold-call in this situation.
I remember when I first started poker, I followed WLLHE's preflop advice and it saved me a lot of money while learning the game. This point cannot be overlooked. Most of the money you make as a beginner in low-limit games is from avoiding costly errors. It's okay to win at 1.5BB/100 for your first 10K hands of .5/1 while learning the game. You can add marginal hands and play more aggressive once you have that experience. I don't want to hijack a good thread, so I'll stop now. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Pretty sure that if you have some juicy guys behind you who respect your table image, that you would like in the hand, you would probably rather call than reraise, right?

I think that the expert level of play has less to do with SD value of hands and more to do with creating the appropriate situations in which your hand has max EV. In this regard, I think playing some NLHE is really really worthwhile to the development of an LHE player. I mean, I think ideally that an expert would be observing the play of his opponents, choosing his hand and his position to try to exploit their opponents' most common and costly errors.

For example, in HPFAP, it says that you can play A6 against opponents who will play any ace...

Now there's no way that I've gotten to this level of thinking, or even concentration, yet, but I feel that it's possible for me to get there one of these days. I'm not 100% sure if there are many people on these boards who HAVE gotten there, but I haven't read the Mid/high forum ever, so maybe that's where they all chill out. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

When observing a game to see if it's a good game, you should be watching for mistakes (miller mentions looking for cold-calling and lots of people to the flops for a good example, few raises, etc.). When you see a post-flop mistake, you have to have an idea of how much it cost the guy, as well as how often that sort of mistake can occur, and I guess you should think about how likely it is to happen in your favour also. If this guy's weakness is something like three-betting with TPTK when there's no way that a TAA could have a hand that beats him (but where a LPP certainly could have one!), this won't really help you at all, other than by slowing down the rate at which the LPPs give their chips to this guy, and thus, giving you a better chance at getting and keeping their chips.