Where do you draw the line?

[Talking Poker]

Good post, and excellent questions.

Unfortunately, I don't have much more to say about it than that right now. Mostly because I just don't know.

I'll be interested to see what other people think though.

[Zybomb]

In my opinion, you want to loosen up and play more hands, but those hands with implied odds.

You want to be paying suited connectors and one gappers even for a raise, suited aces and suited kings become playable in LP, as does any pair and even some suited 2 gappers or unsuited connectors.

You generally do not want to be playing cards with low implied odds, like A7o let's say, as chances are you'll lose more money than you extract with it.

As far as playing straight trash, simply because you know if you could steal the pot, if you are going to do this, I reccomend only doing so on the button or one off it.

Trust your reads

There is no specific # of hands you should play an orbit, but you should look for excuses to call on or one off of the button. With enough limpers in the pot and the implied odds that you suggest, almost any two cards become good enough to call with here.

I'd still remain relatively tight in EP, although I would loosen up my calling requirements to include all pairs and suited connectors

Of course make sure you are correct in your assessment on the other players at the table, and you aren't the one being played!

[lightfungus]

Always something to keep in mind. These guys would deserve academy awards if they weren't how I assessed them; they sure knew how to keep the imatard look plastered on their faces for long periods of time.

[lightfungus]

So I was thinking a little more about this, while another rough night of pokee was occuring, and I wanted to present my ideas. If you are sitting at a table where you think you have a significant advantage in skill and understanding of the game, if you do not loosen up considerably you are passing up your edge. This is my argument.

To clarify, if you sit down at one of these rediculous tables and limit yourself to premium hands, meaning you only play a few hands, you are allowing luck to be a huge factor in your making of money that night. Why? Because you are limiting the amount of opportunities for your skill to have an affect on the outcome of that session. Everytime you play a hand, say that 10% edge (very arbitrary figure) gives you a 10% chance to win any given hand by sheer brute strength or knowledge of the game. As long as you play intelligently, everytime you play you are giving yourself this chance in addition to cards alone. Now if you sit around and wait for the top ten hands in holdem, and lets say your skill still gives you that %10 edge, and the cards are giving you a, guesstimation here, 60% chance to win the hand, thats 70% chance to win the hand for that hand. Now how often do these top ten hands come? I think someone said like there are 160 starting hands, around that value.

So we have 10/160*.7 = .04375 or a 4.4% edge through a complete session of 160 hands. Obviously there is going to be significant variance in what kinds of cards you get when being dealt 160 hands...

Now, say for all hands, your cards give you on average a 15% chance to win the hand. So we now have a 10% + 15% edge on any 2 cards. So lets solve for how many hands we have to play to be equal to the "Tight Man" strategy.

x/160 * .25 = .04375 and solve for x, and x = 28. So we have to play 28 hands for our "Loose Goose" to be even with the "Tight Man's" edge. 28 hands isn't even 25% of the time! Thats considered tight right there, at least with a game that has a lot of limping.

What if we increase the probability of winning those tight hands to like 75%, then we have
10/160 * .85 = .053125

then,
x/160 * .25 = .053125, and x = 34 hands. 34 out of 160 hands... that isn't hard to do, nor really that tight. Thats just to break even obviously, so the more you played the bigger advantage overall right?

So, depending on your agreement with the estimated figures of 60% and 15 %, and depending on how much advantage you think you have at the table, I still think you can argue that playing significantly looser than the incredibly tight man is something you should do. Now, is there a balance in there somewhere? Of course, but as long as you play good poker, making mathematically sound decisions in all the hands you participate in, that 10% edge in every hand you play is something you have to consider, no?

[Talking Poker]

I don't think you can do what you just did with math without breaking math.

I see your point though. And yes, while it's true that "You can't win if you don't play," I promise you that it's also true that "Playing every hand is a mistake."

[lightfungus]

That's why I said there was a balance...and where did I break math...