Any reviews on Howard Lederer's Limit HE(!) DVD available?

[Shandrax]

Is it any good?

[TaoTe]

I've never seen it, but I've heard that it's only usefull to the begining player.

[turnipmonster]

haven't seen the dvd, but what's the (!) for? howard was a high limit player for years and years.

--turnipmonster

[kitaristi0]

I think it's to emphasize the limit part. To make sure he doesn't get any comments on the NL videos.

Haven't seen the Limit video, but if it's similar to his NL videos, then it's marginally +EV at best.

[AApprentice]

I have seen the DVD. It really is pretty basic, geared more toward beginners who mostly focus on NL. The most beneficial info in it, for me, was when he discusses the Free Card and references Sklansky's HEFAP. I had never read any 2+2 books before hearing of them in this video.

[TaoTe]

Have you seen any of his other DVDs and are they any good? Lederer Tells All looked interesting, but I've not heard great stuff about it.

[Shandrax]

Exactly, most people know the no limit DVDs only. The second one of these ("more secrets..") is pretty decent I would say. That's why I was asking about the limit DVD. If it is as good as the 2nd no limit one, I would buy it. If it is just basic stuff like the 1st one, I'd skip it.

The really interesting part about the DVD is the pre-flop strategy, actually the hand groupings which you can download for free from the homepage. They deviate from the Sklansky groupings and I would really like to see some expert judgement on the question which ones are better.

Especially the hand grouping stuff is driving me crazy. I have the Sklansky groupings, then I found some study on the internet that attempts to prove that they were incorrect and then I got the Lederer groupings. Quite a dilemma...

[binions]

[ QUOTE ]

Especially the hand grouping stuff is driving me crazy. I have the Sklansky groupings, then I found some study on the internet that attempts to prove that they were incorrect and then I got the Lederer groupings. Quite a dilemma...

[/ QUOTE ]

No dilemma. In all but the toughest games, suited cards that add to 20, AA-77 and AK-AJo + KQo are your bread and butter in unraised pots.

Other hands are situational. Those situations can include:

Improved position

As your position improves in unraised pots, suited aces and suited cards that add to 19 can be added even if the pot will not necessarily be multiway.

A multiway pot

If there are 2 or more limpers (plus the blinds), you can add all pairs. With 3 or more limpers, all but the smallest suited 0- and 1-gappers become playable. In late position, suited King-middle becomes playable multiway.

If you expect 5 people to see the flop because that's the way your table plays, then you can call with any pair in early position even before there are limpers.

A weak player has entered the pot

Usually, you want to raise and isolate. You don't always need to have even a normal calling hand, as you will be playing the board against this player if you are successful in isolating him.

Blind steal

If you are in late position, and the pot is unopened, unsuited big cards that add to 20 become playable. Since the pot will not usually be multiway but heads up, being suited is not crucial because you will not have the pot odds to draw anyway. Instead, you will be hoping to flop top pair and punish draws, dominated hands and middle/third button hands.

[Shandrax]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Especially the hand grouping stuff is driving me crazy. I have the Sklansky groupings, then I found some study on the internet that attempts to prove that they were incorrect and then I got the Lederer groupings. Quite a dilemma...

[/ QUOTE ]

No dilemma. In all but the toughest games, suited cards that add to 20, AA-77 and AK-AJo + KQo are your bread and butter in unraised pots.

Other hands are situational. Those situations can include:

Improved position

As your position improves in unraised pots, suited aces and suited cards that add to 19 can be added even if the pot will not necessarily be multiway.

A multiway pot

If there are 2 or more limpers (plus the blinds), you can add all pairs. With 3 or more limpers, all but the smallest suited 0- and 1-gappers become playable. In late position, suited King-middle becomes playable multiway.

If you expect 5 people to see the flop because that's the way your table plays, then you can call with any pair in early position even before there are limpers.

A weak player has entered the pot

Usually, you want to raise and isolate. You don't always need to have even a normal calling hand, as you will be playing the board against this player if you are successful in isolating him.

Blind steal

If you are in late position, and the pot is unopened, unsuited big cards that add to 20 become playable. Since the pot will not usually be multiway but heads up, being suited is not crucial because you will not have the pot odds to draw anyway. Instead, you will be hoping to flop top pair and punish draws, dominated hands and middle/third button hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the logical way to approach the problem, BUT sometimes computer simulations discover things that can't be explained logically at first (usually happens later when people are aware of the phenomenom).

Let's assume we follow the theory from the WLLH-thread and see the small stakes player as someone who more or less mechanically follows a good (but pure) strategy like a Blackjack-dealer. The Blackjack-dealer doesn't play optimal, but if you keep the counters away, he will make profit. In the same way over the long run the poker player will beat all players who play a different strategy that contains more leaks.

Now we have to identify possible leaks. If we take the starting hands, then we might have a reason for a huge swing in percentages already. If some computer simulation found out that playing T8s utg adds 0.01c to your bankroll on average, then folding it will reduce your winnings. That's a pretty ridiculous example, but I hope you get my point.

The initial hand selection builds the foundation for maximum profit and if there is a computer proven way to play, it will beat human aproximations in the long run.

Personally I would love to see our famous authors like Sklansky, Malmuth and Miller start a project with computer simulations to do research on the problem. First step would be to contact the guy who analyzed the old hand groupings and talk to him, maybe spot errors in his assumptions and so on.

[Shandrax]

For the record, I just received my copy of SSH and I think the pre-flop section is outstanding. It also shows that computer analysis cannot solve the problem, because every hand depends on the number of players and the amount of money in the pot. Computer that doesn't take this into account would be too superficial while one that does would be too complicated and contain too much data to be useful.