Middle Limit Holdem

[silvershade]

I've been playing for a couple of months now and use PT to track my progress, for the past 4 weeks or so I've been retooling my game basically on a weekly basis incorporating new ideas that I've seen in the forums and/or read in poker books.

In the last couple of weeks I've been reading Middle Limit Holdem and spending a good deal of time thinking over the many hand examples in there, I'm pretty sure this has been good for my game but I'm also aware that some of the advice is sometimes criticised as weak tight.

The thing is, I'm finding that trying to adopt the approaches in middle limit holdem seems generally more successful for me personally than the slightly more aggressive approach generally recommended for the micros. When I follow this approach it seems my W$SD goes up from around 55% to somewhere around 65% without really affecting my W$WSF at all. At this point I'm definitely folding more than I have previously and oddly having more success with deception on the limited occasions I am using it.

I guess my question is, can you do ok in the micros using the approach from middle limit holdem or is it actually too weak tight?

[parappa]

It's probably somewhat too weak tight, but these are general statements that don't really mean very much. I really like MLH, a lot, and I really like SSH, a lot. The thing that you have to do is to take situations where the advice is different and figure out why the recommendations are different. Then you're in a position to improve your understanding of your game.

Quick example: Pretty much everyone will raise AJo UTG in the micros. However, MLH (I don't remember the exact words) say that you should generally fold it or play it against weak opponents. Know we've got a useful piece of info: In the party .5/1 raise AJo UTG, but on Crypto 1/2 on the first of the month at 9 a.m. don't unless your table is actually so tight that you have a decent chance of stealing the blinds. Or what to do with AQ after a raise is a good example. It all depends on how your opponents play, what ranges of hands they'll play with, etc.

The difference imo is that the default reads in each book are different. What you (and I) have to do is figure out what those assumptions are and why they matter.

I would love to see/contribute to some threads on MLH hand quizzes.

[parappa]

Also, because it's my account's birthday and I'm feeling a bit good-deedy, you might find this thread about MLH overcard play interesting.

[silvershade]

Thanks [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[MrEngenic]

[ QUOTE ]
the party .5/1 raise AJo UTG, but on Crypto 1/2 on the first of the month at 9 a.m. don't unless your table is actually so tight that you have a decent chance of stealing the blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? The cryptos are ALWAYS so tight that you will often steal the blinds with a raise UTG. You can't really fold AJo first in.

[parappa]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the party .5/1 raise AJo UTG, but on Crypto 1/2 on the first of the month at 9 a.m. don't unless your table is actually so tight that you have a decent chance of stealing the blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? The cryptos are ALWAYS so tight that you will often steal the blinds with a raise UTG. You can't really fold AJo first in.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. This is a horrible example. I do almost always raise here. How about limping with little suited broadway, JTs, UTG? This might be a better example. The SSH default if you were just going to blindly follow their recommendations without thinking about them, would be to limp JTs UTG. The default MLH line would be, I think, to fold it, and it has to do with what kinds of hands your opponents will play behind you with. If, at Crypto 1/2, you limp in with this, you're often going to get raised behind, and the person who raises you is going to have a better hand. You might raise with it because it seems that you can steal the blinds from any position with a high chance of success, but folding is, imo, just fine in a game like that. OTOH, folding would be quite bad at an average .5/1 Party table.

Of course, even though I've corrected my mistake and said this, I can already see exceptions to it, and it's not a great example either because I'm pretty sure that both MLH and SSH say close to the same thing on this hand in this position--that it's marginal and table-dependent. And here my attempt to simply pick an easy example out of the sky goes terribly awry. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[bottomset]

I haven't read the book, but I think its written for playing against reasonably good thinking players, something that is pretty rare at micros