Loose games: Ed Miller disagrees with HEFAP

[Magellan]

Interesting that you bring this up, I just read that very section of HEPFAP last night, and was pondering the idea.

I think as UATrewqaz said:
[ QUOTE ]
As SSHE states

"Loose is different from just plain bad"

Low states games are full of loose bad players

Higher stakes have alot more LAG's and people who play well once the flop has arrived.

[/ QUOTE ]

So it relates in part to the post-flop ability of your opponents, and HEPFAP does seem to be aimed at higher stakes games than SSHE.

What Victor says is interesting though:
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hepfab is wrong on this one as simulations and large internet poker databases have shown.

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And the gut feeling I had was the same. I just thought that I must be missing something because I don't feel like I have anywhere near enough poker knowledge/experience to be confident calling such texts wrong. I'm interested to look into these simulations further.


So, the crux of what I'm thinking is this:

Regardless of stakes, if you assume that opponents will make the same calls irrespective of the pot size, surely we want more money in the pot. Whether or not these opponents are making a mistake by calling does not adversely affect the likelihood of us winning the hand, so we want to win more bets when we win. Maybe I'm missing something but I think what I'm saying holds up SO LONG AS we win more pots than we lose with a given hand that we're applying this thinking to. With that in mind I guess we have to consider the positional starting ranges of the specific opponents we're faced with at the time, and try to judge whether we have a big enough edge against that range to win more times than we lose. If so, then raising seems to be the way to go.