Wilson TTH System Pre-Flop Strategy

[brianmarc]

Thanks for your comments. I believe you are correct. BTW: I have read TOP several times; as well as The Psychiology of Poker (Schoonmaker); Middel Limit HE (Ciaffone); Winning Poker for Serious Player (Silberstang); Inside Poker Mind (Feeney); HEP for Advanced Players (S&M). So I'm aware of all the theory. Problem is, the games I play in bear little resemblace to the games most of this material is directed to. Players are poor to awful and sinc eit's online, there is little concern or ability for pattern recognition nor hand reading.

[SA125]

Re: the competition in your games.
Good article on Cardplayer.com this month about being 5 steps ahead of players who are 1 step ahead.

I responded in a post how I raised from MP with AKs and lost to a flop of K-10-3 by a guy who cold called with 10-3s.

I then got flamed by a guy who misguidedly referenced Doyle Brunson's wins with 10-2 at the WSOP. Apples and oranges.

Open raising all the time? In those games that are being played by the seat of the pants, stick to solid play and changing gears.

[brianmarc]

The best argument I have heard for OR all the time in weak games (and being weak is the crucial element), is that in those hands that I play I either have the best hand coming in (and that is a long-run guarantee of winning the pot), or I have a draw hand that, if it becomes the best hand, will generally get action.

A related benefit is that you create havoc in the minds of your weak opponents. Example: You open-raise UTG with 98s (which I always do), and, being weak, he limps with something like A4o. Flop is A98. Assume he doesn't improve for the rest of the hand. You bet (don't CR since that really gets the fish's attention), he raises, you call. Turn: You check, he raises, you re-raise, he calls. You bet the river and he calls. He loses and because of the level of this hand, he will remember it. he flames you for raising with junk and you smile apologetically (yes, we can do that online). In future, when you raise and hit your flop AQ/Qxx, say, and he has a weak pocket pair or underpair, he's likely to remember the previous hand and limp along as you bet. Can't tell you how many times these guys will go to the river because they suspect you are stone-cold bluffing; and this is all because you earlier raised a hand that they figure is a sign of incredible looseness, not picking up those hands you OR's and quietly folded on the flop.

I call this the Attention Getting Benefit (AGB) of hyper-aggressive play in weak games. So far it's paid well for me. And because there are so many weak online games, I can troll for the promising situations.

A further comment to the purists on 2+2: The difference is like Tiger is playing the Bud Light Circuit. At the 2+2 player level the game is an art form that is appealing just as much for it financial opportunities as for the challenge and satisfaction of interesting and fascinating games. (Feeney-Inside the Poker Mind - or maybe Sklansky, said that he feels good about playing a hand perfectly even if he loses it). Well, hello, guys! Down here on the Bud Light Circuit, we'd much rather have a missed shot ricochet off a tree into the hole than hit a perfect 7 iron that ends up in a trap! In other words, winning a hand ugly is better than losing it elegantly.

And in my games there are so many weak players they provide a veritable forest of ricochet surfaces to bounce the pot right into my stack!

[astroglide]

[ QUOTE ]
Example: You open-raise UTG with 98s (which I always do)

[/ QUOTE ]
that is retarded, even moreso online where there are thousands of opponents that mostly don't pay attention.

how about the majority examples that involve you missing or playing middle pair out of position after having raised preflop?

[brianmarc]

"that is retarded, even more so online where there are thousands of opponents that mostly don't pay attention."
That's my whole point. Since they don't pay attention you need to sometimes make these 'retarded' plays. Clearly not a world you inhabit.

"how about the majority examples that involve you missing or playing middle pair out of position after having raised preflop?"
When I miss completely I check/fold. Also, since the raise will sometimes knock out the stronger players, and the weak limpers have nothing, it will check all the way round, giving me a free card. If I hit middle pair I bet. In SH it is good enough to win against these clowns often enough to justify it. Will fold against a raise.

Astro: Your, and the comments of your expert brethren seem to miss an important point in what I am saying. You would agree, I assume, that we make money at this game by a combination of our opponents’ mistakes and our lack of mistakes. I would add to this that there are DEGREES of mistakes (DS puts one example very succinctly – (I paraphrase). “An error that costs you a bet is a mistake; an error that costs you the pot is a catastrophe.” With this in mind, if I am playing against really weak players who are making many catastrophic mistakes, I can benefit by playing against them even if I am making lesser mistakes. In fact, I might even try and argue that against a player who makes major mistakes most of the time, it is a mistake on my part not to play hands that are usually considered ‘mistakes’. IOW: Mistakes a RELATIVE. And what is clearly retarded in your context, may, in fact, be quite smart in mine.

[astroglide]

you didn't say 'sometimes', you said 'always'. the words are quite dissimilar in meaning. i think i can assure you that sklansky would consider this a grave error.

what i meant when i said people don't pay attention online was what i said: they do not pay attention. even if you're raising 89s utg. they look at their cards, look at the board, and continue to play their mindless game.

by raising 89s up front you're most often limiting yourself to playing against superior hands, out of position. if somebody calls you with a4o, per your example, they are making the correct play because their hand is better than yours.

[brianmarc]

Jman:

Can't find the article you refer to. Can you spost the URL?

TVM.

[brianmarc]

"always"
Mea culpa! I meant "always" when playing against the weak. Since I usually leave the table as soon as more than 1 real player sits down. If the game looks more competent I will adopt a less retarded strategy.

[astroglide]

and i would still contend that you are playing into their hands if they are cold calling you with naked aces.

[brianmarc]

Even if you knew that they would always call all bets you made to the showdown, except maybe for a board 4-flush or 4-str8?