Thought of the Week - December 9, 2007
December 10, 2007
First, I want to join those who are mourning the passing of David “Chip” Reese. I never met the man, though I have seen him a few times playing at the Bellagio. Nevertheless, he was a giant in the poker world, and I offer my condolences to his family.
A reminder that my forum is now open to new registrants. Just follow the instructions on the register page.
For those of you who somehow read my forum and not 2+2, there are several comments (and some criticism) of my book here.
OK, having now solved the problems of the limit world, I want to focus a couple of Thoughts on no-limit. There is an amazing amount of commonality in the NL errors I see among my students, and I will run through some of them in the next few weeks.
The first is simply not being willing to be bluffed. Everyone gets bluffed. Every great player has been bluffed dozens or even hundreds of times. Often, you will watch a tournament on TV and see the eventual winner laying down a hand or two to a bluff. I do not want to get sidetracked into tournament NL, but that is a common reference.
In limit, getting bluffed is bad. certainly survivable, but bad. That is because you only have to put in a small fraction of the pot to see your opponent’s hand, so making heroic laydowns in large pots can be a huge error even if your call will be wrong most of the time. Yes, I know you all knew that.
In no limit, the penalty for folding to a bluff, especially a large one, is not so severe. In fact, you can lay down the best hand quite often and still be a big winner in a NL cash game as long as you also get paid off when you do have the best hand. Sure it is not manly to fold, and not fun to be outplayed time after time. So if you are playing for machismo or entertainment, call more often. But if you are just trying to make money, folding a few more times when faced with resistance and getting the other guy to call your big bets because he thinks you may be bluffing is a key to long term success. As the old poker saying goes, “Sometimes it is better to give them credit than cash.”
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