[Leavenfish]

"What is this 'hold em arrow' you speak of? Sounds interesting. What book was that from?"


The Hold Em Arrow is a visual concept introduced by (as I recall) Bill Burton in his book, Getting the Edge.... The book itself is only ‘so-so’ and I have not bought it; but there are a couple of good things in there, one being this easy to understand visual concept.

Basically, if you graph the playable starting hands for a given seating position from left to right into three sections: Suited (on top), Pairs (middle) and off-suit (underneath pairs) you get an arrow pointing to the right. Just glance at it in a bookstore and you will see what I mean. I have simply augmented it in an Excel spreadsheet with what I consider the best advice on how to play each starting hand—I stick pretty close to Hilgers advice (call only with 4 or more people in for 87s in a late position, unraised pot, for example—easily denoted in a cell under the hand with Call 4) but may supplement it with Millers and have ‘Arrows’ for both tight and loose games. The concept is easy to follow and I think it is the ultimate reference chart for the beginner. I should bottle and sell it…though undoubtedly someone will not put it in a book and sell it for $24.99…

While I am sure some may diss the very idea of keeping a chart in front of you. For online poker I find it great and I also use a handy reference chart taken from another new book (it may have been Carsons book or Braids) that gives me what the pot size needs to be in order to make a bet based on x number of outs—no more calculating (except the outs) and mentally comparing—simply check the amt of the bet with one card (or two) to come, check that against the number of outs and you see the two converge at what the pot size needs to be in order to make the call. Simple. I find that I can use these charts to free up my time to concentrate on other parts of the game and more easily play multi-tables--lets face it, in online poker, the play is fast and furious so you need all the free time you can get to think about your game!