Book Suggestion: "The Play of Marginal Hands"

[jediael]

This is my suggestion for the successor of SSH. I think this is what most people (including me) need the most. Lots of examples and details on playing marginal hands from the flop onwards.
As Mason suggested, this could be divided into a 100/200 and a 3/6 part, outlining the differences between high and small stakes.

[Wright Patterson]

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I think this is what most people (including me) need the most. Lots of examples and details on playing marginal hands from the flop onwards.

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Gee, it's sure not what I need, and what most players I know need. This would imply that the rest of your game was rock-solid, like you were some sort of poker robot - but personally I find it hard to play non-marginal hands consistently well over a long session. Limping a hand you know should have been tossed preflop; calling automatically instead of thinking; subtle instances of tilt; going for a check-raise on the river and realizing afterwards you should have just bet out because your board was too scary or your opponent too passive; etc. Even experienced posters in the small-stakes forums are constantly listing their mistakes.

Hey, it's not that I'd object to a book on marginal hands - it might be fun and spur some interesting thinking - but I wouldn't say it's what most of us need. The truth of the matter is that the existing literature (TOP for example) presents an ideal that most of us will never reach.

[RiverMel]

speak for yourself, f00

[Daithi]

I think the idea about marginal hands is great. The ability to play these marginal hands is vital because they come up so often. My current stategy is -- dump them if the pot is small and play them if it is big. I am sure this can be improved on.

[Blarg]

I think the really good hands come a lot closer to playing themselves than not once a little experience and reading has come and gone, but the marginal hands and situations are where the real winners in poker start to pull far ahead of the pack.

[Pirc Defense]

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Gee, it's sure not what I need, and what most players I know need. This would imply that the rest of your game was rock-solid, like you were some sort of poker robot

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Most players may not be very good playing non-marginal hands, but there are plenty of books that address non-marginal hands. The original poster wanted a book that discussed marginal hands, as there is not a lot of literature in book form discussing marginal hands.

[AceHigh]

nm

[John Biggs]

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The ability to play these marginal hands is vital because they come up so often.

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Do they really come up that often? Or does it just seem that way because our understanding isn't deep enough?

If you're a beginner, nearly every hand except the stone cold nuts is marginal in some sense because you have no idea what the heck you're doing - you're usually uncertain about the outcome. And if you're truly an expert, many hands that seem marginal to intermediate players are no longer so, because you have a clear understanding of the range of outcomes for nearly every hand that comes up, depending on how you play it and what advantages you're seeking. The better you get, the more hands you can classify as positive EV or negative EV rather than somewhere in the murky middle. And obviously certain hands that are neutral or negative EV for a less skilled player are positive EV for you.

So what exactly are we talking about with "marginal"?

If it's hands that are very close to neutral in terms of EV no matter how well you play them, then playing them or dumping them becomes immaterial to results. The only benefit to branding a hand "marginal" in this sense is that it lets us know we can safely skip it unless we have other reasons to play it - for example, if we get lucky and hit a longshot draw in a hand that is slightly minus EV, we may get the additional benefits of a loose image or of tilting a particular opponent.

If on the other hand we're talking about hands which for most of us are neutral EV, but in the hands of an expert become positive EV, then we're back to my original assertion: what we define as "marginal" depends on our ability. So a book about "marginal" hands would really just be yet another book about advanced poker. You'd want a more specific focus for the book than just "marginal hands."

Anyone got a better (higher utility) definition for "marginal"?

[npc]

I hope the originator of this thread doesn't take this as an insult, but I don't think this is a very good topic for a book. The topic at hand is "marginal hands". If it's a marginal decision whether to, say, fold or call a particular hand, then, by definition, it doesn't make much difference in the long run what one selects, now does it?

I just don't see how a book full of situations where the author is forced to conclude, "Well, it really doesn't matter what you do in this situation, your equity is about the same in each case," helps my play very much.

Now, if you want a book that discusses how some situations that might seem like marginal situations really aren't, that seems much more worthwile.

[Beach-Whale]

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Do they really come up that often? Or does it just seem that way because our understanding isn't deep enough?

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I'll just quote Roy Cooke, since I trust his knowledge of poker more than my own:

"Assuming you are not playing with intellectually challenged people, most of the differences in your decisions and your opponents' decisions will be in marginal situations."


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So what exactly are we talking about with "marginal"?

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"By marginal situations I mean those in which you can make a case for playing a hand in different ways."


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If it's hands that are very close to neutral in terms of EV no matter how well you play them, then playing them or dumping them becomes immaterial to results.

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"The edge factor of marginal situations adds up to a significant number over the course of time."

Link to quoted article.