A WINNING STYLE
As a general rule,a winning poker style requires that you only play your very best hands, folding most hands early, but in Holdem it’s not always clear how to determine which hands are best.
There is no magic list of playable hands.
Determining what kinds of hands value in what kinds of situation is one of the skills you need to develop to become a winning poker player.
STRUGGLE FOR THE ANTE
In poker theory, poker games begin with a struggle for the antes or blinds.
Theoretically a bet is a declaration of the form, “I have the best hand, give me the pot. ”As I pointed out in the last chapter, the best hand.
Also there are reasons to play a hand other than it’s probably the best hand.
In fairly tight games, this theoretical principle of playing the best hand is the guiding principle-it’s how you’ll make the most money for that game.
As the game becomes looser, however, this principle based on the ante theory becomes less important, and theories based on bad players or odds become more important.
As the game conditions become loose, hand values derived from the drawing potential of the hand begin to become more important than value derived from the hand being best right now.
Potential value from betting that will occur on future rounds becomes important.
This is implied odds we talked about in the last chapter.
Also, as always, the mistakes that your opponents tend to make add value to hands.
Different kinds of player mistakes can give value to different hands.
When you’re evaluating a hand to play, you need to think in terms of potential value, not in terms of rank.
Pick the Right Table / Picking a Seat / Theories of Poker / Betting Theory: The Odds
A Theory of Flop Play: Counting Outs and Evaluating Draws
The Dynamics of Game Conditions / Table Image / Player Stereotypes
Women and Poker / Spread-Limit Games / Double Bet on the End Games / Kill Games
Short-handed Games / Tournaments / No-limit and Pot-Limit Poker
