[daveT]

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if schoonmaker had actually followed his advice to its logical conclusion, i hope he, malmuth, and sklansky all would have realized it was blatantly wrong. looseness and tightness shouldnt be measured relative to the rest of the table.

[/ QUOTE ]

According to TOP and SSHE, the amount of hands, and how you play them are based on several factors, including: The Size of the Ante.

If you are playing a large Ante game, then it is mathematically better for you to play more hands, as you are getting better immediate odds, implied odds, and better late street odds to draw.

I know you are going to argue that Hold'em has no ante except in tournament play. However, if you are playing in a game with 90% of the people seeing the flop, then your effective ante is going to be 9 SBs. You are now receiving 10-1 break even odds on your hand. If you are in the small blind, then you are receiving 19-1 break even odds in your hand.

Compare to a game with two players limping. You are now receiving 3-1 immediate odds.

With that conclusion, you are supposed to play looser.

However, the above has no relevance to what you are questioning, but I am assuming that is where you are stuck.

What Dr. Al is observing is that some players play TIGHTER THAN AVERAGE. If you sit at a table with every one seeing 70% of the flop. Then a tight player would only be seeing half the flops. I think that POP only wants to explain why this player is not willing to play looser, why this player is not playing more aggressive, why this player is not playing tighter, etc. This player probably thinks he is playing correctly because he read somewhere that he is supposed to play tight, although he is playing incorrectly. The meat of the book is trying to describe why this player is playing tighter than the rest. I am not sure how deep it goes, but I remember that Dr Al gives advice on how this player can improve, and why this player plays an inhibited game.

The book is broken down into four groups. TAG, LAG, TAP, LAP. He talks about what each player does, why they do it, and then makes suggestions to how each can help there own game.

I know I already stated that I don't like this book, but any perceived strategy advice is not the blame. I still don't understand how the two excerpts you gave are talking about strategy.