Stepping Out with Rags
When friends or students of mine ask me the best ways to learn about poker, they’ll normally inquire whether or not they can advance their game by watching a lot of poker on TV. To me, learning strategy for games like hold’em through watching shows like High Stakes Poker or Poker After Dark is like watching the Yankees play so that you can improve your swing. Why? The pros depicted on these shows are playing a level of poker that you can’t even begin to comprehend, which is why you’ll see them make confusing calls and raises with marginal and junk hands.
When pro players play with low-strength hands, they understand that they aren’t going to win the hand on their power of their cards alone. They’ll rely on making good reads and formulating strong strategies based on how the hand progresses. When your typical novice player steps out with a hand like J-5 though, they don’t possess the necessary skills needed to maximize the chances of winning with rags, hence they’re just throwing their money away.
This is why beginning to amateur players are taught to play a fairly tight style based around premium hand selection and position. It takes years to learn how to develop reliable reads on other players, as well as have the experience to be able to recognize when you can take down a pot with a weak hand. It is understandable if you want to limp into a pot or make a raise with rags every once in awhile as to not look like an extremely tight player to your opponents, but these moments should be few and far between. The money lost limping and trying to make plays with these hands will far outweigh the amount of money won.
