[Matt Flynn]

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Matt, I think that the problem in this case is that the book has virtually no postflop recommendation other than "bet pot" and assumes that every hand will play out with pot-size bets on every street. So how do the SPRs work when every street is a 2/3 pot bet, or when the flop is checked? To what extent is obtaining a good SPR helpful if most hands are folded on the flop? What are we giving up or gaining in terms of preflop betting when we miss the flop?

I know some of the answers to these questions may be "volume 2" but it may not help foster better play at this time if SPR is sort of floating out there disconnected from overall approach.

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i think that it helps tremendously at lower stakes, but also that SPR is nowhere near enough for tougher games. we never intended it as a stand-alone strategy for tough games. rather, in tough games it helps you see where the hand might go and where the trouble spots are likely to be.

like you point out, we barely touch postflop. we haven't gotten to several preflop topics or a global preflop planning strategy yet. we also haven't discussed how to evaluate opponents or your own play, how to plan and anticipate postflop betting lines, and many other topics.

leaving SPR to stand alone in the late split between volumes 1 and 2 has caused us a lot of headache. yes, you can play to steal, and sometimes you don't play for commitment, and every hand really is a hybrid depending on how things go. believe me, we would reorder it if we could. :-)

to be fair to us, your average green no-limit player playing in loose live games and loose microstakes online stands to gain the most from thinking along SPR lines. those mistakes come up over and over again and are expensive. that's why we focused on it in PNL1.

once you get into tougher games you cannot survive without planning around hybrid strategies, whether you are conscious of that or found it through trial and error. there isn't an MSNL or HSNL player worth his salt who does not do that, although the nittier ones don't emphasize it as much. we know this, we play accordingly, and we've written about it. it just didn't get into PNL1.



adjusting for 2/3 pot bets is easy. the problem range is anything above what you think you'll want to put in with the hand should you hit. if that's an SPR of 5 than anything above 5 sucks for you -- at least until the SPRs get big enough to offer wiggle room.

matt