First of two articles of an anti-thesis against Daniel Skolovys recent strategy articles "strong hand, big pot, weak hand, small pot.
For the following discussion are now ready to order, please read this article .
Ready? So: How many times have you heard the following sentence? "With Pocket Aces win one small pot or lose big"?
If your answer is "never", you wait it only occasionally. It's just a matter of time.
The same players represented like the maxim that you should play in a raised multiway pot all low cards, and for the following reason:
"Players raise and call raises with high cards, thus increasing the chance that you meet with small maps and hits the high cards."
Both statements contain a grain of truth. It is even more than a grain. I would say that as much truth there is that I think it is wrong to label them as "wrong".
But I will now try to explain where the logic error that stuck in what and how it could come to them.
The initial situation
We will adopt in principle for our study, the following hypothetical situation:
We are in a cash game with ten players. Our Hero is a TAG (tight-aggressive player) and plays accordingly.
All other players at the table are solid, there are no extraordinary fortune or hyper-aggressive attackers below. All players have a decent mid to deep stack.
As a strong hand, we describe here only the four best starting hands: AA, KK, QQ and JJ. As a weak hand, we include low suited connectors and one-Gapper.
Strong hand, small pot
The chance on getting Pocket Aces is located at 1: 221 If we add the other three high pairs, the odds are about 1: 55
The chance that we get one of these hands, but at the same time another player at the table are negligible and insignificant.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, no other player at the table even have a hand with which he is putting serious money into the pot.
Players get a hand, with which they want to see the flop, such as a low pair, they will take in 87% of cases, no set and fold on the flop.
So we are in most cases, if we keep a high pair, only win small pots. Only a fraction of cases holds an opponent a hand that is worth an investment.
In such a scenario, the pot will be large.
It's not really mögich to calculate this, how often you win the pot, because there are too many different factors. One is also an important reason why this theory is irrepressible.
Till death do us part
Beginners tend to "marry" the hands of some.
In situations where the opponent has a better hand, whether before or after the flop, they are not able to let go of her hand. They use all their money and lose with their strong hands very large pot.
In cases where holding by the hand, those enemies are the most popular because they are with their hands "married". In some cases, however, take on more players who are also able to fold.
Every time we lose, we lose a big pot, but we won in only half of the cases, so we lose more than we win. This is an impression that does not deceive.
The last factor refers in his summary Rounders
"In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player," said Jack King, "only a few players remember the big pots they have won, strange as that sounds, but each player remembers with startling accuracy of the worst bad beats of his career ".
The players, who believe in the theory set out above are the same players who always forget how many times they have strong hands to win a big pot, but have yet know exactly how many times it went wrong.
Taken together, the two factors, one has a theory that appears virtually irrefutable.
As Dan has mentioned in his article Skolovy already, you should try to play with strong hands around the entire stack. This advice is absolutely correct, but it applies only to strong players.
If you are not able to throw away aces, if you are beaten, you should adjust your game first on winning less than more to lose.
