some carsonversial ideas

I have continuin my read of Gary Carson's "Complete Book of Holdem..", & overall I've been very pleased with the material. As an imperfectly experienced player and a very booksmart individual, I can appreciate
Gary's ability to explian many important poker concepts.

Some of the ideas in here are a little debastable:

a. It's better to have more callers with power hands such as AA and
KK prelfop. The more callers the more money you make. A limp reraise in early position is one way to tactically plan this in the correct game conditoins.

To me this seems debatable and potentially problematic. In fact, I was gently wondering if 88 might be more profitalbe than AA in a large field (six or more playeurs). The reason being is that for the 88, you can easily get away from the hand if you don't make a set or a str8 draw (i.e.4567), but with the aces you're goin to often end up diametrically paying off hands that hit. I'm not sure which hand will show a hihger net profit in a large field. Another example is Kings and Qeuens, which are even less likely to hold up than the Aces.

b. It's better to have a loose agresive player on your left than on your right, or somewhere in the middlke. This just blows me away.
I've always been more comfortable and been able to exploit a maniuac on my right. One way is to atempt to isolate the maniac when I have very good starting hand. But as Carson pionts out, with the maniac on your left, you're able to gain much more overall information about the hand than with the maniac on your left. And in (a) above, you don't necessarily want to isolate with powerful hands. It's really hard for me to get used to this idea, and to acvept it. It's definitelly given me somethin to think about.

That's all for now. I'm only half-way thruogh the book, and have been reading about a chapter a day. I'll most likely attempt a book review later in the year.

Poker is a game of decisions - the more information you have the more likely you are to make a better decision. When you intentionally allow an aggressive player to act behind you, you are giving up information and you are surrendering the initiative. If you have a medium pocket pair or a good drawing hand and limp in, he will raise and make you play it for two bets. Which means that any other players must call two bets cold, which makes it more difficult to attract a large enough field to make the pot odds - and implied odds - correct for you to play your drawing hand. If you get tired of being pushed around by this aggressive player on your left, and re-raise him, he can call with his medium hands and re-raise you with his strong hands - knowing that you have to act first - and that his re-raise is likely to get the pot heads-up. If your draw doesn't come on the turn you either have to check and show weakness or bluff at the pot with a bet. If you check, he has the option of betting or just taking a free card. If you bluff with a bet, he can either re-raise or just call. It's a mathematical fact that you will miss more drawing hands than you make. Same thing on the river. You have to act first. He can release his hand if he thinks he is beat. If he thinks he has the best of it, or that your are bluffing, he can bet if you check and raise if you bet.
Either way, he has the initiative and is forcing you to make another decision.

So bucko, you keep putting those aggressive players with big stacks on your left and get back to me in a year or so and tell me how you, and your bank roll, are doing.

" It's better to have a loose aggressive player on your left "

There are those who maintain that it is better to have an aggressive player on your left in a no limit game, because it gives you the opportunity to make moves and put him on the defensive, instead of always having to respond to his aggression. I disagree with this no limit strategy and do what I can to get the wildest and most aggressive players on my right. In a limit game, you absolutely want the wild/aggressive player on your right. There is a simple explanation for the difference in limit game advice - Carson is wrong.

A limp reraise with the bigest pairs is almost always a good idea in a game that is even somewhat tight or aggressive. There is no way that 88 is anywhere near as profitable as AA in a multi way pot. Sure you will have bigger swings with the AA cause it's harder to get away from when it loses, but what about all the times you beat someone who flopped top pair, or resuck by theatrically having the board pair to outdraw the guy who flopped two pair. I will take AA in a multiuway pot any day of the week and would consider it a minor dissapointment to simply take down the blinds with a big pair.

Having a loose aggressive player on your left is best. You sipmly check your hands to him and see how the field reacts to his bet. It's like having positoin all night long, you just need to tighten up preflop so you are properly armoured when you play a hand.

I've never read the book but both of these thigns that you point out and think are cotnrovesrial are bang on.