Just North of Wrigley Field

posted by James - 4:10 PM

I just got a potentially crazy idea. We're all accustomed to games where the two players to the left of the button are putting in money before they get to see their cards AND know what anybody else will do AND they'll have to act out of position on all streets after the flop is dealt. I'm not really trying to question the foundation of our poker games, but does that really make sense? That we load the situation against those two positions?

Wouldn't it be interesting to see the blinds reversed? Make the cutoff and button post the small and big blind respectively. Still start the hand under the gun and have the two players directly left of the button act last pre-flop after all other players and be able to fold their hands without investing anything and avoiding have to play from such horrible position post-flop. The "blinds" are automatically paying for their right to have such great position and anybody attempting to steal from them would have to factor in their advantage when doing so.

Again, this could be a completely crazy idea and may be better placed in a different forum, but I'm interested in your thoughts.

posted by James - 4:13 PM

Here's a couple snippets about books I would recommend to new poker players:

Read Daniel Negreanu's Power Holdem Strategy... for Evelyn Ng's section on beginning play. Not necessarily because it's the absolute best advice (somebody earlier hit it on the head with Phil Gordon's Little Green Book... best book for beginners), but her chapter will let you know what other people at your level and below are trying to do and will help you play accordingly against them. At your level, you need to know how to identify and beat those players before you try to take on the players who are actually better than you. Good Luck!

Super System is a must read... although it can be too advanced for newer players, BUT it does a great job of setting up the basic structures of the various poker games before moving on to tougher and tougher concepts to master. IMO, you can get a lot more out of a book like Gordon's, Negreanu's... even Harrington's, than Super System... at least for a beginning player.

I was remiss earlier not to mention Harrington. If you're getting to the point where you're making final tables, but not breaking through to big wins consistently... then you read Harrington on Hold'em II. Fantastic advice and strategy for taking down tournaments.

I started with Online Ace, because I was mostly an online player to start (at least for money, otherwise just playing with my friends or in leagues) and then moved to Little Green Book and Little Blue Book. I also read quite a lot online and CardPlayer articles and columns. Honestly, there's more information out nowadays than you'll find in any books. Books are still great! Please don't misunderstand me on that. But between the forums and the training videos and the quizzes and magazines... there's so much more out there these days. If you're still just reading books, you're missing out on so much.