If I forget everything I read about PSRs...

[Aaron W.]

And went back to thinking how I was thinking after reading Harrington on Hold'em 1, how much would I be giving up? What are the types of mistakes I should be expecting myself to make?

[akak]

Was trying to think of something witty to say about not making pot sized raises anymore, but I give up.

You'll find yourself in more difficult situations post flop like trying to get to showdown with top pair on the river, only to have your opponent push giving you 2:1.

[Aaron W.]

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You'll find yourself in more difficult situations post flop like trying to get to showdown with top pair on the river, only to have your opponent push giving you 2:1.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is there more to it than this? My initial impression of PSR is that it seems like a lot of work to avoid making a hard decision that doesn't necessarily happen too often.

[akak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You'll find yourself in more difficult situations post flop like trying to get to showdown with top pair on the river, only to have your opponent push giving you 2:1.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is there more to it than this? My initial impression of PSR is that it seems like a lot of work to avoid making a hard decision that doesn't necessarily happen too often.

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably. It depends what you mean by not too often. I'd say the most common difficult decisions I have are when I have top pair, I'm facing a big raise and wondering, crap does he have a set/2pr.

That said, I do agree that it's a lot of work. I just got through reading that section myself, and I think it's something I'm going to keep in mind and use when I'm analyzing hands after the fact. Like, oh yah this hand would have been a lot easier if I raised more preflop. But as far as in game decisions go, I'm already overwhelmed with applying less difficult concepts, so I think this can slide for now.

[Man of Means]

Good question, and since grunching is learning, here i go:

SPR helps to avoid tough decisions. Tough decisions (compared to easy ones) are more likely to bring about mistakes. Mistakes are how you lose money.

I think SPR is a very useful tool for playing top pair/overpair hands, especially in loose games where giving implied odds is a concern. At the same time, when you're deciding whether or not to play 75s, you think "what's the SPR going to be?" which points toward the way the hand will play out.

Low SPR -> you're getting the money in quicker, so with a speculative hand you either have to flop big, bluff convincingly, or forfeit a shot at the pot when you've invested a good chunk of effective stacks. With a big pair/TPTK hand, you don't really care what goes down, you usually will be willing to get your money in.

High SPR -> you can take a flop and see; get away from the hand; push someone off a hand; often get implied odds to go to the turn and river; may have to "trap" to get someone to commit AI.

In general if you already intuitively think in terms of taking or giving implied odds, then you probably have the concept down without having a name for it.

[akak]

Good short paragraph on the purpose and power of SPRs:

PNL, page 187, right after the second grey box.