Is Dan Harrington sane? Hand from his 2nd book.

[soon2bepro]

Hand is 10-2, page 242. I post this because I think Harrington is very wrong in what he says.

Please don't move the thread to another forum as I think it will get better replies here.

Situation: Toward the end of a one-table satellite. Players B and E are aggressive. Player C is super-aggressive.

Your hand: A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Stacks are:
A: $610
B: $610
C: $2840
D: $1480
E: $1700
SB (HERO): $1330
BB: $1430

Blinds: $30/$60, no antes.

A folds, B minraises to $120. C, D, E all fold to you. Hero calls. BB folds. The pot is now $300.

Flop:
J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]


Now, Harrington says you should lead with a "probe" (if it can be called such) bet of about half the pot, but the Hero decides to check. Harrington says:

"He's an aggressive player, he's down to his last $490, and by checking you almost forced him to bluff. So you should call."

(continues)
"If you had led off with a bet of, say, $150, he might just have folded. But if he then came back over the top with an all-in bet, notice how easy your decision-making gets."

And here you say to yourselves, of course, he thinks the play here is to lead/fold. But no. I continue to quote him:

"Now the pot is $940 and it costs you $340 to call, those are 2.7-to-1 odds, and you have to call, unless you're sure he's playing with a high pair (and you never are). Train yourself to look for the plays that make future decisions easy"


Now, explain just how is a bet/call play better than c/c to his all in? With the bet you're making him fold a larger percentage of his weak hands than he would've bet had you checked, and when he goes all in after you bet, you're still going to call!

Sklansky would say, stop a bluff, then FOLD. Otherwise don't try to stop it!

Even a rr all-in pf would be better than bet/calling this horrible flop.

Im not saying c/c all in is the best course of action, but it seems certainly better than the one Harrington proposes.

[cocofrite]

I really don't like preflop in this hand because it seems half your stack's gonna be put in the middle with this weak hand no matter what.
Can we consider folding pf ? Check folding some flops ?

[Conor.McCarthy]

I don't see how pushing the flop isn't the best course of action if we are calling any bet anyway. We want B to fold any 2 cards due to the pot size.

[ahnuld]

this really IS the wrong forum for this though. Its a SNG and the STT forum would be alot better at handling this question. It's their area of expertise.

push preflop to avoid this messy confusion

[1st and 15]

Simple answer. ALthough DH is usually reliable and a very good player who has written some g0ot books, DO NOT take his word as gospel. There are several hands (this included) that he uses in his books that make me shake my head.

[0evg0]

fold pf

[Fiksdal]

[ QUOTE ]
fold pf

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah... we really don't wanna play this marginal hand out of position against an opponent with an undefined range.

[woohoo88]

Without a better read than "aggressive" i agree with a fold pf.

If the read was more along the lines of "aggressive with minraises being weak" it has to be an easy shove pf.

[ItalianFX]

If you check, Player B should be smart enough to make a cbet, where you should then fold.

I would fold preflop though and avoid this.