There are no good cards, just good situations

That's probably the most singularly important piece of advice I've ever received regarding poker. You can have pocket aces, but if you're in the small blind with 6 others, that's not a good situation at all. Conversely if you're on the button with 43o, an early raiser and several callers, that could be very profitable with the right flop (trips, 2 pr); the deck is likely rich with smaller cards. (that situation won me a nice pot in my regular 3/6 game sunday night)

Everything about poker is situational. Everyone's heard the reply to the question "how do you play XX?" - "It Depends." When you're in a hand, you have to constantly be evaluating and re-evaluating. Analyze information like position, types of players, tendencies of players, texture of the board, pot odds and implied odds, etc. Know what to expect out of a given situation before that situation arises.

Gotta respectfully disagree here:

1) There are very few situations with AA that I would call "not good." The ones that are "not good" are typically contrived examples where 6 or so of your opponents hold pocket pairs with a couple of suited connector hands thrown in, so for all practical purposes, you won't ever see a bad situation for AA. While it is true that you are more likely to win with fewer opponents, you have more equity when more opponents play the hand, which is especially good if they will pay you off with marginal hands.

2) I would almost never play 43o to an early raise and several cold callers in a cash game. Maybe in a tourney when the blinds are ridiculous, but definitely not on the button, as I will see at least a couple more hands before my blinds. Simply put, there will be better opportunities for you to invest your chips.

I agree with the general tone of your post, and I think that adapting to changing conditions (knowing when the situation is good) is what separates the successful player from the unsuccessful one, particularly in tournaments, where the situation is changing relatively quickly, and you cannot just leave to find a better game.

{ Moved from Tales of Poker }

I overall agree with this post but the examples are a bit questionable....

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Originally Posted by koolmoe

That's probably the most singularly important piece of advice I've ever received regarding poker. You can have pocket aces, but if you're in the small blind with 6 others, that's not a good situation at all.

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I dont know what other 2 cards you would rather be holding in this situation. If its NL, a big raise should trim down the field.

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Originally Posted by koolmoe

Conversely if you're on the button with 43o, an early raiser and several callers, that could be very profitable with the right flop (trips, 2 pr); the deck is likely rich with smaller cards. (that situation won me a nice pot in my regular 3/6 game sunday night)

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I would agree more if these were suited or higher unsuited connectors.

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Originally Posted by koolmoe

Everything about poker is situational. Everyone's heard the reply to the question "how do you play XX?" - "It Depends."

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I agree... However, I would agrue most of the time your decisions should be fairly straight-foward based on the scientific aspects of the situation (e.g. preflop cards, position, #opp, #opps in, stack count, betting history, etc). The other "depends" situations would then encompass more of the "artistic" aspects. (e.g. table image, opp profiling, deception, intuition, etc)

I believe you should do fairly well at poker mastering the scientific aspects (maybe include some opp profiling) and you would do very well incorporating the artistic aspects. So if the "depends" situation does not have all the scientific elements, then your decision will wrong, unless you get lucky. The other 2-things to watch out for are conflicting solutions (ie. where 2+ scientific (or artistic) elements are giving you conflicting actions) and leaks (ie. where your betting strategy is giving you the wrong action

You mis-quoted KoolMoe, Locklow34 wrote it . . .

Hey Moe so what's your bench up to now ?