ITH or SSH?

[BugsBunny]

I agree with this assessment.

Also as far as the QQ example goes - the starting hand chart doesn't make this case. The starting chart has you raising/reraising no matter how many people are in the pot.

When you read the advanced concepts part he says, about QQ from LP:
[ QUOTE ]

Of course you should almost always raise this premium hand, however somtimes you might just call when there are 3 or 4 callers already in the pot. Calling can be a good play for 2 reasons. First an A or K will come on the flop 43% of the time, which is bad news against so many callers. The more important reason is that you have a better chance of driving out your opponents on a favorable flop by keeping the pot small. With a raised pot your opponents will be correct to draw to many hands on the flop. If the pot is small, your bet or raise on the flop could drive out many of your opponents giving you a better chance of winning if an A or K comes on the turn or river. You can still raise in this situation as either play is close in regards to profit expectation, but just calling can add a little deception to your game to confuse your opponents


[/ QUOTE ]

So he doesn't say that this play should be made all the time. It isn't even the default play (which is to raise, as stated in his charts) He says sometimes you might call and add deception to your game.

(I still raise though)

Overall the flaws that exist in the book are minor (but they do exist), and as a starter text I think it's the best on the market. It's fundamentally sound and will give you a very good base to grow from.

[Saborion]

[ QUOTE ]
Last time I was in AC playing 10/20 I think I saw the other players get AA about 5 times in my somewhat short session and 4 of them limped preflop. Fortunately, I got AA 3 times myself, raised preflop everytime, and never had any problems getting action.

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course you hadn't any problem getting action. You added deception to your hand by raising with it pre-flop!

[mchilger]

Just a few clarifications about this thread. Sometimes pulling sentences out of a book gives a different message than the context that it was meant to be read.

ITH has three chapters on Starting Hands.
- The introduction explains criteria to use when evaluating starting hands.
- The second chapter is Starting Hands/Beginning-Intermediate Players. That chapter includes the starting hand charts and recommends raising or reraising with QQ in all situations. In fact, in the text I state in several different spots that you should raise/reraise with QQ.
- Starting Hands/Advanced Concepts. This chapter is intended for advanced players and starts out saying "we will discuss situations where you might add a little deception to your game." Later, when discussing late position I discuss how QQ can be played. The paragraph starts, "Of course, you should almost always raise with this premium hand..." The paragraph then explains a specific situation where you might call and finishes, "you can still raise...but just calling can add a little deception to your game to confuse your opponents."

The entire QQ discussion was just meant to show advanced players how you can add some deception to your game without giving up very much expectation.

There is one other concept that I think is worth mentioning. There has been a lot of discussion on my boards and here about maximizing expectation and taking advantage of every single edge possible. I think Ed's book is the reason for much of this discussion (I am still waiting for delivery so haven't had a chance to read it yet but am looking forward to it).

All of this discussion is quite valuable and is the ultimate goal of every poker player; however, beginning players also have another very important goal...managing and maintaining their bankroll. If they go broke they are finished.

Beginners generally have smaller bankrolls and I believe they should play in a manner which minimizes their fluctuations and standard deviation without giving up too much in profit expectation. They shouldn't be playing a lot of borderline hands for two reasons...1/ it will increasee their fluctuations giving them a higher chance of going broke and 2/ their post flop play generally isn't good enough to play borderline hands profitably.

The Starting Hand charts in my book were not designed to be the optimal strategy for an advanced player. They are designed to put beginning to intermediate players in potentially profitable situations while also minimizing a player's fluctuations (standard deviation).

Regarding pot equity, if five players are in a hand I don't believe it is always the best play for beginners to raise whenever they have a slightly better than average chance of winning the pot. Let's say they have a 22% chance of winning. By raising they will increase their fluctuations increasing their chance of going broke. Another problem is that many beginning players get married to their hands after raising preflop (I know I did when starting out). Many play their hands too far after raising. They take a recommendation of "raise" to be their ticket and they end up losing even more money than they should have when the flop is not advantageous. Managing equity vs. fluctuation is a tight rope walk.

The main audience of my book is beginning to intermediate players although there is a lot of discussion of advanced concepts also. I did my best to include these advanced concepts without hindering the progress of the beginning players.

Best regards, Matthew

[Nottom]

Glad to see you joining us here Matt, I've heard good things about your book and have it on order.


[ QUOTE ]
Beginners generally have smaller bankrolls and I believe they should play in a manner which minimizes their fluctuations and standard deviation without giving up too much in profit expectation. They shouldn't be playing a lot of borderline hands for two reasons...1/ it will increasee their fluctuations giving them a higher chance of going broke and 2/ their post flop play generally isn't good enough to play borderline hands profitably.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think the whole added varience angle of aggressive playing is way overhyped. You don't add a lot of varience by investing an extra SB preflop with good hands, and in most cases this little bit of added varience is in fact overshadowed by increasing your win rate ever so slightly and by thinning the field a bit and giving you goo dhands a better chance of holding up.

That said ... I think the second point you make is very true for a lot of players, especially when you are raising these types of hands from the blinds and will be out of position for the rest of the hand.

[bigslickfitz]

I decided to go with ITH for now and will probably get SSH and the theory of poker in the comming months.

[Ed Miller]

Regarding pot equity, if five players are in a hand I don't believe it is always the best play for beginners to raise whenever they have a slightly better than average chance of winning the pot. Let's say they have a 22% chance of winning. By raising they will increase their fluctuations increasing their chance of going broke.

You are right here. (Though I think variance is not the main concern... you often maximize your EV by not raising if you have such a small edge.) If you have a 22% chance of winning, often not raising is correct not just for beginners but also for experts. It's when you have a 30% chance of winning (like you often do with QQ) that raising is mandatory.

Another problem is that many beginning players get married to their hands after raising preflop (I know I did when starting out). Many play their hands too far after raising. They take a recommendation of "raise" to be their ticket and they end up losing even more money than they should have when the flop is not advantageous.

I'm not sure I agree with that. For sure, having raised the pot certainly forgives some postflop looseness (which is one reason you should avoid doing it with marginal "22%" hands... because it forgives the looseness of your opponents). In fact, a raised pot forgives a whole lot of looseness. Its hard for me to believe that a new player will see a raised pot and play SO MUCH more loosely than he would in an unraised pot that his mistakes are actually worse in the former. I think new players don't take pot size into account often enough...

In other words, I somewhat agree with Matt on this matter, but I think the line needs to be drawn a LOT lower on what hands should be raised. QQ is an easy raise in basically any unraised pot in any small or medium stakes game because it wins SO MUCH more often than the average hand. (In a 5-way pot, you are often looking at 28%+ equity... that's too much to miss.)

If Matt made the same argument about A7s or even 88, I wouldn't argue. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

EDIT: BTW, you have to be VERY careful about asserting which plays increase or lower your risk of ruin. Often raising in a certain spot actually lowers your longterm risk of ruin (even though it increases the variance for that hand). To illustrate the concept, which option has a higher risk of ruin for a $100 bankroll:

Betting $2 per hand with a 1% edge
Betting $5 per hand with a 10% edge

In this manner, raising preflop with AA almost certainly LOWERS your risk of ruin (even though it increases your variance). I think the same logic probably applies to QQ as well.

[mchilger]

Ed, I basically agree with everything you have said. I think the differences are very slight in the arguments. I agree beginning to intermediate players should raise and reraise QQ in every preflop situation. My book and charts show that...I just explain one certain situation where an advanced player might add deception without losing much expected value.

My point about the 22% is just that there is a point when preflop expectation isn't the only consideration and I think some players may be missing that point. For example, when playing JJ or TT. You probably have the preflop advantage against 4 opponents but beginners on a limited bankroll are probably better off calling depending on their postflop skills.

[ QUOTE ]
Its hard for me to believe that a new player will see a raised pot and play SO MUCH more loosely than he would in an unraised pot that his mistakes are actually worse in the former.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously every player is a little different. I just think that there is a macho factor involved when people raise preflop. This was a big leak of mine when I started out and I eventually learned that raising preflop doesn't necessarily mean that you must always be aggressive on the flop. With many beginning players, you know they will bet every single time on the flop after a preflop raise...but hopefully you are right in that anyone reading our books would not be this type of player, [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

Regarding risk of ruin I agree. As I stated, beginners should minimize their fluctuations and standard deviation without giving up too much in profit expectation. How you define "too much" is a fine line and you never want to give up too much expectation.

I think the main point of my post was just to show that bankroll and fluctuations are an additional consideration for many players and I think it's important that people keep that in mind while learning the game and developing their style of play.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
2/ their post flop play generally isn't good enough to play borderline hands profitably.

[/ QUOTE ]

When Hilger says this about beginners, I think he's making an extremely important point.

Many people speak of playing any suited or most any suited ace or many other hands that to them might be quite playable. However, the reason they are playable is because some posters have anywhere from quite good to superior post-flop skills. A beginner is almost guaranteed to have neither. So a beginner trying to play the hands -- and apply a great deal of the advice -- of better players can find himself taking a tremendous pounding because of it. Nobody is meaning anyone any harm and everyone is trying their best, but advice has to be taken in context according to who's giving and who's receiving.


Hilger also says [ QUOTE ]
Beginners generally have smaller bankrolls

[/ QUOTE ] .

Often they have MUCH smaller bankrolls because they probably play undercapitalized even more than pros do -- and that's saying a heck of a lot. Plus they don't have the experience playing to have built up a thick skin about losses yet, and can have emotionally volatile reactions to losses instead of just taking their lumps like everybody else. It's almost impossible for beginners to understand how long the long run in poker really is.

Simply normal bankroll variation hits beginners especially hard. Advice that doesn't fit their skill levels and winds up increasing their bankroll variations can be a very confusing and dispiriting reward for beginners trying to improve their game.

Hilger's book gives extremely solid advice for beginners and non-beginners alike. SSHE gives extremely solid advice, but for beginners it can easily lead to a world of hurt. It's a must-have, but at a later stage of development. As Ed himself says, it's not intended to be a beginner's book.

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]
I have read (and re-read) WLLH and am consistently winning at the micro-limit games. I want to start another book and am curently thinking about going with either ITH or SSH.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are on the right track as ITH and SSH are the two books I would recommend reading, along with TOP. The main thing to realise about SSH is that it is very specifically target at a certain type of game, with little or no discussion about anything else. Even low limit games can get tight at times, and SSH wont really help you that much there where ITH will.

Still if you are playing at low limits there will be a lot of loose games and if you haven’t read SSH yet you should. In fact its only hold’em book I have read where I have felt the pre flop advice was spot on, well the text any way not sure about the tables. Still I guess the tables were deliberately left rather vague to prevent people using them too rigorously.

So I would advise reading both books, but start with SSH as that will likely improve your game the most. However if you were a complete beginner interested in internet poker, I would suggest reading ITH first as it gives a good overview of the whole industry rather than focus on one area.

[iceblink]

[ QUOTE ]

Often they have MUCH smaller bankrolls because they probably play undercapitalized even more than pros do -- and that's saying a heck of a lot. Plus they don't have the experience playing to have built up a thick skin about losses yet, and can have emotionally volatile reactions to losses instead of just taking their lumps like everybody else. It's almost impossible for beginners to understand how long the long run in poker really is.

Simply normal bankroll variation hits beginners especially hard. Advice that doesn't fit their skill levels and winds up increasing their bankroll variations can be a very confusing and dispiriting reward for beginners trying to improve their game.


[/ QUOTE ]

Very good point, Blarg. I like to call this the "psychological bankroll".

Even if the beginning player has a $300 bankroll for a .50/$1 game, it can be very discouraging to lose 100 BB in a row. This can of course become very costly if the player then goes on tilt or otherwise starts to vary their play because they're stuck.

When I first started playing online, I even took the measure of making myself quit while I was ahead if I'd had several losing sessions in a row. I knew I was leaving a very profitable game on some occasions, but I thought it was worth it psychologically to log a winning session to keep my spirits up, then start fresh the next day.

Alan