[Ed Miller]

I kind of skimmed the post. But it does sound like your friend has an attitude that will get him in big trouble.

I'd guess that 80% of the profit in poker comes from the best 20% of your playable hands. That is, AA-99, the big suited cards, and AK probably account for 80% of your profit in any full (i.e. not shorthanded) limit holdem game. In a game full of loose-passive players, you could certainly play just those hands and make a very nice profit.

Adding some hands beyond that will increase your earn. But the more marignal the hand, the less that hand will give you even in the most ideal circumstances. Hands like 98o and J8s, when played in the absolutely perfect spot, might give you a hair of +EV (like a few hundreths of a bet). Playing these hands in the wrong spot will certainly be unprofitable, though. Playing 98o in the wrong spot once can lose you the money that playing it correctly ten times made you.

I'd guess that an expert player can boost his total winrate by 5-10% (at most) by adding "marginal" starting hands in the appropriate spots. A decent, winning player can cut his winrate by 50% or more by adding these same hands in the wrong spots. Calling two cold with 98o is, to be sure, very much the wrong spot.

In other words, your friend is looking in the wrong places to help himself beat holdem games. Adding marginal hands will never make the difference between winning and losing. He needs to concentrate on learning to play a small set of starting hands well after the flop.