Good High Hand from Small Blind facing a Raise

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for sharing your insight.

[/ QUOTE ]Eric - You're welcome. I hope you profit from it.

Thank you for the compliment.

Buzz

[Buzz]

Hi Driller - [ QUOTE ]
The odds of flopping a set or better (with one pair) are slightly better than flopping a set with a pp in holdem.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes.

[/ QUOTE ]The odds against flopping a set or better in holdem with a pocket pair are 7.5:1.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes.

In other words, playing Texas hold 'em, out of 8.5 tries, Hero will flop a set or better 1 time and flop worse than a set 7.5 times. So Hero makes 1/8.5 and misses 7.5/8.5.

The probability of Hero making a set or better is (1.0)/(8.5).
The probability of Hero missing is (7.5)/(8.5).

When we say Hero misses about seven times out of eight, we mean the odds are about 7:1 against.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm fairly new to o8 and even though I'm a slight winner, it could very easily be due to luck instead of skill.

[/ QUOTE ]Whatever the reason for your success, congratulations.

[ QUOTE ]
At first I used Tenner and Krieger's starting hand recommendations,

[/ QUOTE ]I think those are generally very good starting hand recommendations and should have you playing a relatively tight game, but not too tight, which is good. There's a lot of overlap between the KT system and mine - more overlap than differences.

However, there are some areas where we evidently disagree:
For example, I would not recommend playing every hand with four "prime" cards. (I call them "wheel" cards). 5544, 5533, and 4433, for example, even if double suited, are not hands I want to play. I think hands with a small pair can become trap hands. (You tend to make a small set and then lose to a bigger set - or you tend to make a full house that loses to a better full house).

I would also not play every hand totalling 40 points, in particular the high aceless rainbows.

But my system will have you playing a few marginal type hands that Krieger and Tenner would probably recommend avoiding, for example As4sXY hands.

And I think double suited king hands can be very strong hands if you play the game well and can sense when to push them and when to get out of the way.
[ QUOTE ]
but lately I've been looking for ways to reduce my VP$IP. Hopefully your point count will help me do that until I can improve my post flop play.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't know what VP$IP stands for.

Be very careful when you change from a successful way of doing something to another way.

Please keep us informed as to how well the starting hand selection system works for you.

Buzz