Why is everyone looking for reasons to fold hands?

[Wintermute]

I'm honestly curious about this... I'm not criticizing the mindset, it's just counter to my own and I would like to understand others' point of views to perhaps seek balance with my own.
What I mean is, lately there have been a lot of posts of the ilk: "shoudl I play an A3?" "should I not raise AA2 in position" "when is A2 playable?" "Do you raise anything other than AA-low?"
I know that most posts come from a limit perspective that requires a tighter starting hand requirements set than PLO8, but even when I play limit I'm generally searching for ways to convince myself that a given hand is playable, not vice versa...

[Bremen]

Because most people tend to overvalue hands. Thats why fish play so many hands, because they convince themselves that KQ24 double suited is a great hand. At the low limits you're going to run into the nut flush, nut low way too often to make it profitable.

[Wintermute]

I agree, KQ24ds is not great. But people have been debating the merits of A2, A3, and AA2 hands...

[mosquito]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree, KQ24ds is not great. But people have been debating the merits of A2, A3, and AA2 hands...

[/ QUOTE ]


Yes. At limit I do not play dry A3 anymore. There has
to be something else to help the hand (there is most
of the time, but not always).

Debating the merits of AA2 is kind of silly.

[GooperMC]

[ QUOTE ]
"shoudl I play an A3?"

[/ QUOTE ]
I think a valid discussion. Some good players don't think that playing a dry A3 is profitable, some good players do. Therefore a valid discussion

[ QUOTE ]
"should I not raise AA2 in position"

[/ QUOTE ]
This wasn't a discussion of folding / not folding AA2. This was a discussion of how to play AA2 optimally. I though this was a useful and valid discussion (though there will be people that disagree with me).

[ QUOTE ]
"when is A2 playable?"

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't remember this one.

[ QUOTE ]
"Do you raise anything other than AA-low?"

[/ QUOTE ]
Again not a conversation about playing vs. not playing this hand it was how to play it optimally.

Overall I think that any post that sparks well thought out conversation is a good post and I think the A3 and AA2 posts did that.

To respond specifically to your post the vast majority of O8 players play too many hands (my PTO average for limit is in the mid 40’s). Therefore people on this board are trying to not be like the average loosing O8 player by folding hands that don’t make money.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

I think that some people on this board are obsessed with making Hellmuthian laydowns rather than making solid bets and calls for value where you are often beat, but the pot is large enough to make it worth your while. At least in the games I play, you don't always need the nuts to raise. One time, I was able to tell that my opponents were all going for low except for one goofball who might have the nuts but who would call me with two pair, so I raised with a queen-high flush.

Now let me tell you a story about one of my most successful runs at an Omaha/8 table. It was so insanely good that I was making more than 0.5BB/hand over a two hour period online. Not per 100 hands, per hand. A maniac to my right was playing crazy. He limp reraised UTG with J642, for example, and pushed high only hands. A few seats to my right, a straightforward tight player was grumbling. Not only was he complaining about how he was winning less than half the hands he ought to average at a nine-handed table, he also cited the fact that he was only seeing 25% of the flops. Of course, what was happening was that I was raising the maniac, and he would never ever call two bets cold with anything less than the nuts or a draw to the nuts, except perhaps with a set on a non-scary board. So, I would continually raise him (and a similar if less tight player) out of pots with bottom two pair, a second- or third-nuts low draw, king- and queen-high flush draws, all sorts of hands that aren't the nuts or draws to such. Meanwhile, I would get called by all sorts of horrible players who thought that A7 was a good hand to chase low with.

In a tougher game, maybe you need to make more laydowns and play tighter, but I've never played in a game that averages three players seeing the flop, so I don't know.

[PokerProdigy]

I am just looking for the best way to play winning/profitable poker, and that seems to be with the mindset that you sorta look for more reasons to fold than vice versa (which is what the fish seem to do [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]).

[PokrLikeItsProse]

[ QUOTE ]
I am just looking for the best way to play winning/profitable poker, and that seems to be with the mindset that you sorta look for more reasons to fold than vice versa (which is what the fish seem to do [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]).

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, except for the ones who bluff too much, I think that saying the fish tend to check and call way too much is a much more accurate way of describing bad players rather than saying they don't fold enough. While folding is what they should be doing sometimes, it is also true that they should sometimes be betting instead of checking and raising instead of folding. I think it is a valid criticism of some posters here that they are more interested in avoiding the mistake of calling when one should fold rather than the other errors I mentioned. It's not a bad thing to contemplate. It's been said that being weak-tight is a first step on the road to becoming a winning poker player and the ability to look for possible reasons to fold seems to be one of those tendencies that you need to retain as you improve.


I'm going to put things in perspective here. A3 and 23 are playable hands, although there exist times when you should fold them. A3 and 23 are most playable in games where you are justified in limping in with a high-only hand. They are, of course, hands you would almost always defend your big blind with.

[Ironman]

My play is definately not weak tight. I try very hard to be tight aggressive but I am trying to find the right balance between levels of aggression.

One other thing to remember when thinking about the reasons for discussing these levels of aggression is that many of us are playing several tables and need to make decisions very quickly. I am trying to make those decisions second nature.

These discussions get me there more quickly.

Dave