A Question About Marginal Hands

[PokerProdigy]

I have heard and read many times that most of your profit in limit holdem comes from marginal hands. Intuitively this makes sense because the good and bad players wouldn't (usually) win or lose any more or less with the big hands like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, etc... I used to always try to play a very tight preflop game in limit holdem (like the one in GSIH) and try to stay away from marginal hands. I am wondering if this is a bad idea, especially since I have read SSHE a few times along with many other good poker books, so I feel like I have an ok grip on the game and how to play marginal hands.

So my questions are:
1) Do you agree that most of the profit in limit holdem comes from marginal hands?
2) Do you agree that it is actually a bad preflop strategy in limit holdem to play too tightly preflop, because if you don't play enough marginal hands it will be difficult to make a profit?

[citizenkn]

Where in the world do you read this? Most of your profit will ALWAYS come from the better hands. The only way good poker players make money from marginal hands is that they know:

1. The right situations to play those hands
2. How to play those hands post flop

Even then, marginal hands will only be marginally profitable compared to the oodles of money you should make from the monster hands.

And also, contrary to your post, good players CAN make more money off the monster hands than bad players. Good players know how to get more money in the pot with those hands and they have a better idea of how to protect those hands post flop.

1. I don't think you can put a majority of profit on marginal hand play because if you played every marginal hand 100% perfect and didn't play premium hands equally well you would break even or worse.

2. Tight pre-flop for limit is the only way. If you play tight then any marginal hands will either be dismissed on the flop because it has no further advantage or it will turn into a hand that can be played to the max.

These are very short answers to your questions. I would love to expand if someone wanted. (But I'm a newbie so take it for what is worth)

[elmitchbo]

i agree with you more than the other posters. the difference between good players and great players is found mostly in the meediocre hand range.

everybody knows to fold 72o and raise with AA. the extremes on both ends are pretty easy to handle. of course, a better player may extract more value form a monster hand. i don't think that really has a huge effect on overall profit though.

the real difference in earnings comes from guys showing a loss on hands like ATo or Q9s because they go to far with them, play them in the wrong position, play too passively, etc. if you show a profit overall on those borderline hands it does more for your return than squeezing just a little more from your monster.

[bjarne]

Marginal hands are surely profitable as long as they are played by poor opponents [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
I have heard and read many times that most of your profit in limit holdem comes from marginal hands. Intuitively this makes sense because the good and bad players wouldn't (usually) win or lose any more or less with the big hands like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, etc... I used to always try to play a very tight preflop game in limit holdem (like the one in GSIH) and try to stay away from marginal hands. I am wondering if this is a bad idea, especially since I have read SSHE a few times along with many other good poker books, so I feel like I have an ok grip on the game and how to play marginal hands.

So my questions are:
1) Do you agree that most of the profit in limit holdem comes from marginal hands?
2) Do you agree that it is actually a bad preflop strategy in limit holdem to play too tightly preflop, because if you don't play enough marginal hands it will be difficult to make a profit?

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of your profit comes from the big hands.

Sure, bad players make money with good hands too. The difference is they play a lot of bad hands, that's why they lose money overall, not because they don't make money with the good hands. So I think your intuition is wrong.

Good players play marginal hands because even if they are very small plus ev, plus ev is still plus ev, it adds deception to their play, and playing more hands is fun.

But if you are a very small winner or a breakeven player then playing marginal hands is much more likely to send you in the direction of losing, rather than winning.


--Zetack

[Guernica4000]

[ QUOTE ]

So my questions are:
1) Do you agree that most of the profit in limit holdem comes from marginal hands?
2) Do you agree that it is actually a bad preflop strategy in limit holdem to play too tightly preflop, because if you don't play enough marginal hands it will be difficult to make a profit?

[/ QUOTE ]

1) Do you agree that most of the profit in limit holdem comes from marginal hands?

No I do not agree, and my stats on PT support the fact that I make most of my profit on good hands.

2) Do you agree that it is actually a bad preflop strategy in limit holdem to play too tightly preflop, because if you don't play enough marginal hands it will be difficult to make a profit?

I think the key here is position and table structure when discussing the term "Marginal Hands" I think you would agree that A9 on the button against the blinds is a pretty good hand and it will show a profit over time but the same A9 in a raised and called pot or in first position will break you in the long run.

[Yads]

You're confusing marginal hands with marginal starting hands. Most of your profit comes from the way you play marginal 1 pair hands. This doesn't have anything to do with your starting hand selection, which should stay tight.

[DeeJ]

Over my last 5000 hands I've had AA just 17 times (average 22) and deuces 28 times (average 22). Of those AA I've won just 10 times, avg reward +1.11 BB/100 but it should be up nearer 3 BB/100. So just on AA alone, my expectation would be (and there isn't a great deal of skill to playing AA) a lot greater than where I am over the last 5000 hands.

eg
AA win 10/17 @ 1.1 = +11BB
AA win 17/22 @ 2.77 = +47BB

This hits my profit line....

Add to that the 25 times I've played 22/33/44 and not hit trips once, and I'm accounting for about 20 BB shortfall right there. So I can adduce some 56 BB of losses to simply running bad. Any more [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] is down to me behaving like a plankton.

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
You're confusing marginal hands with marginal starting hands. Most of your profit comes from the way you play marginal 1 pair hands. This doesn't have anything to do with your starting hand selection, which should stay tight.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a little puzzling to me, if you are playing tightly pre-flop, most of your post flop one pair hands will be of the TPTK variety. Those aren't marginal hands, those are your bread and butter.

--Zetack