Why is postflop harder than preflop?

[twang]

Seriously. Why is it more difficult to make the right decision postflop than preflop?

Preflop we have very little information. What we have is our hole cards and maybe a read on the other players.

Postflop we have the above, plus the cards on the board, relative position, our opponents actions, potsize and what not. Yet, with all this information it is more difficult to make the right move.

In analogous situations, more information usually equals a better, and usually, an easier decision. We don't go to war with another countries based on rumours. We don't buy a new car without reading reviews and tests. Well, some do, but that is considered stupid, and rightly so. In poker though, it's the other way around. Why?

/twang

[Lucena]

Because postflop it is up to each person to come up with the optimal play. Pre-flop other people can do it for you and tell you how to play. The deeper into a hand a player gets the more he or she has to do it alone.

[TStoneMBD]

because there are many more situations postflop than there are preflop.

aside from that, its much easier to learn how to play preflop because the situations are far more simpler and you can cover more of them faster. asking, "do you raise AJo UTG" is much simpler than posting an entire hand leading up to the river decision.

[binions]

[ QUOTE ]
Seriously. Why is it more difficult to make the right decision postflop than preflop?

Preflop we have very little information. What we have is our hole cards and maybe a read on the other players.

Postflop we have the above, plus the cards on the board, relative position, our opponents actions, potsize and what not. Yet, with all this information it is more difficult to make the right move.

In analogous situations, more information usually equals a better, and usually, an easier decision. We don't go to war with another countries based on rumours. We don't buy a new car without reading reviews and tests. Well, some do, but that is considered stupid, and rightly so. In poker though, it's the other way around. Why?

/twang

[/ QUOTE ]

Many poker players are optimists. They'll call too much when the flop hits them a little, knowing err hoping, for example, that their bottom pair will become trips or two pair. Time and time again they will be disappointed. But occasionally they will suck out, and the suck outs create a Pavlovian repsonse the next time they see bottom pair. In other words, they gamble when the flop hits them at all, odds be damned.

A much smaller class of poker players, usually new players uncertain of their surroundings, are too tight and passive. They don't see all the possibilities on the flop for their hand, and give their opponents too much credit. They get confused by action on the flop. They end up mucking hands they shouldn't. Or getting sucked out on when they fail to protect their hands properly. Or getting married to an overpair, etc.

[Triumph36]

But the range of hands the opponents hold pre-flop, while very wide, mostly amount to the same thing percentage-wise: against AK, the pairs are very slightly favored, anything with an A or K is a 3 to 1 dog or so, and anything else is a 3 to 2 dog or so. When the flop comes, all of these things have changed radically.

[tylerdurden]

[ QUOTE ]
Preflop we have very little information.

[/ QUOTE ]

You just answered your own question.

[ACW]

[ QUOTE ]
We don't go to war with another countries based on rumours

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you sure?

[afk]

[ QUOTE ]

Preflop we have very little information. What we have is our hole cards and maybe a read on the other players.

Postflop we have the above, plus the cards on the board, relative position, our opponents actions, potsize and what not. Yet, with all this information it is more difficult to make the right move.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you just answered your question right here.


[ QUOTE ]
In analogous situations, more information usually equals a better, and usually, an easier decision.

[/ QUOTE ]

More information can also often mean more complicated.

[ QUOTE ]
We don't go to war with another countries based on rumours.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hahahahahaha.

[Reef]

For the same reason that the 12th move in a chess game is harder than the 2nd?

[Schwartzy61]

Any mathematical problem grows more complicated as you add variables. Preflop the variables are limited. Postflop, there are just a lot more variables that you must analyze before knowing the proper play.