No Fold Em Hold Em

Poker Digest Vol. 3, No. 5, February 25 - March 9, 2000

In no fold’em hold’em games I find that Random Big cards (big cards with out the ace) are badly hurt. Flopping top pair is a bit hurt, there are so many hands in the showdown, you usually need better than a pair to win. Straights break about even. Hold'em or Fold'em. 25,013 likes 3,595 talking about this. Hold'em or Fold'em; a game of intelligence, courage, and luck! We offer the MOST REALISTIC Poker experience by giving YOU the ability to.

In the Poker Digest ``Letters From Our Readers' section, Vol. 2,No. 22, there was a letter from a reader asking for help in nofold'em hold'em because of her or his seemingly constant losing sessions.This article is in response to that letter and perhaps presents a differentslant on the matter.

Let me digress for a few moments and discuss learning. I taughtmathematics to university students for more than 30 years andfrequently heard the post-examination story, in an endless variety ofmanifestations, of how the student really understood the material buther or his mind went blank during the exam, etc. (It has many similaritieswith listening to bad-beat stories.) Most of those students were nevergoing to continue with graduate studies in an intense discipline likemathematics and discover what I discovered: There is a huge differencebetween undergraduate studies and graduate studies!

The difference is not the level of the material--the difficulty arisingfrom the level of the material, for a student at that level, is about thesame for all levels. No, the primary difference in graduate studies isthe level of expectation. You are expected to truly understand thematerial. That is why a typical course load for a graduate student is twocourses instead of the four to six courses undergraduate students typicallydo.

It's virtually impossible for a student with five courses to developa true understanding of all the material. Thus, students study to tryto do well on exams. Their understanding is frequently superficial andcan disappear under stress. People who truly understand something donot have their minds go blank; the understanding is deeper than that.

How does a graduate student develop a deep understanding? It's doneby constantly thinking about the material in hand, discussing it withother people interested in the same material, and when that is done,thinking about the material some more.

What does this have to do with poker and the letter from the reader?Perhaps you can guess where this is going given the above digression.

My essential message to the reader is to read all you can about thegame and then think about it. However, I have much more to say as thepreceding sentence by itself is almost useless. First, there are manysources for reading. There are many books, magazines,and Internet groups. There's no lack of reading material.

Let me now give you some advice on what you read. By and large, muchof what you read is at a fairly detailed level. For example, startinghands are rated, when to call and not to call is discussed, when toraise is discussed, and so on. If you accept this advice at a superficiallevel, you will encounter serious problems: Some of the advice iscontradictory. You will be playing like a robot, and you will be confrontedwith situations not covered by any of the advice. There are somepeople who maintain that if you play low limit no fold'em hold'em likea disciplined robot, you will win in the long-run. I am not convincedthat is true, but in any case you should try to improve your game.

Above I mentioned the virtue of thinking hard about material in orderto develop a deep understanding. What does that mean in the context ofreading much material on poker? For me, deep understanding in the pokercontext means being able to articulate general principles underlying thedetailed advice being given. Thus, what one should be doing is lookingat the advice being given by some collection of writers, thinking aboutwhat is being said until you understand and can articulate one or moreprinciples guiding their advice.

The importance of articulating a general principle yourself is that thismeans the principle is in your own language and you relate to it. Youcan apply it to new situations because you understand it and you canmodify it when necessary. It can be very rewarding.

I recallclearly when I was an undergraduate student and not enjoying memorizinga list of formulas for solving different kinds of problems involvingvolumes of solids of revolutions. I was joyous the day I figured outthe underlying principle for any problem of that type. I promptlyforgot the formulas and solved any such problem whenever I encounteredone using the underlying principle. I also didn't forget it...ever.

Discovering general principles underlying poker situations is not easy.Some writers mostly write about particular situations and never writein terms of underlying principles. Other writers mention generalprinciples and illustrate them with particular examples. You mustthink hard about what all of them are saying until you can make senseof it in your own context.

An interesting test of how well you are doing by following generalprinciples is to play in a new venue and see how quickly you adaptto the game at that particular venue. It can be a real eye-opener.

Good luck!

Gotta Know When To Hold'em And When To Fold Em