This Fish Chums
Visionary
Silver Level
I've heard a lot of people talking about how you have to play each hand based on how you will win the hand over a lifetime. Here's my problem with that. Let's say in 1/2 NL Hold’em, every time you have pocket Aces you bet $20 pre-flop. You get called once and lose. You're down $20. The next 5 times you get the hand you win, but force everyone out pre-flop with the bet. All you're winning is the blinds. So over 6 hands of pocket Aces you win 5 hands x 3 blinds = 5 x 3 = $15 won vs. $25 lost. So even though you win 5 out of 6 time you have pocket Aces you’re still losing $10 over the long haul. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everyone will fold to a $20 bet 5 hands in a row. What I'm saying is, the philosophy of "Play for the long haul" does not take into account the possibility of getting payed for wins less than giving up in losses. If your losing pots are 10 times higher than your winning pots, you have to win 10 times to even out just 1 loss.
I believe this is an inherent flaw in the “playing good pays out in the long run” approach to poker. You can’t just play good, you have to win better than you lose every time you have the same hand more than once. So if you’re betting big and people are folding for your wins, you may be coming out on the losing end of that type of hand.
I believe this is an inherent flaw in the “playing good pays out in the long run” approach to poker. You can’t just play good, you have to win better than you lose every time you have the same hand more than once. So if you’re betting big and people are folding for your wins, you may be coming out on the losing end of that type of hand.