[BadBatsuMaru]

OK, as long as I'm not crazy. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I guess Harrington does actually address these issues by saying any pair is strong (since it's never a big underdog except against a higher pair) and by briefly addressing playability after the flop.

That is, with a pair or a ragged A, you're always pretty happy to push PF because you can have trouble after the flop (if you totally miss, you're not going to want to see the turn/river, and if you have a low pair or hit bottom pair with A5 and your hand is good, you're probably only going to get a call when you're beat), whereas whith a hand like KQ or even JT you're still happy with your hand, you just want to actually take the flop and see how things go from there.

And this is how I play it, it's just nice to try and put it all together so I can understand better why I play it like this. Maybe there is a good way to quantify the playability of a hand (hands that you want to maybe call or put in a smaller raise than you think you should) vs. the pushability of a hand (bad aces, lower pairs) where you want to finish the hand up faster because you'll have trouble playing the flop.