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Server Time: 3/21/2010 11:09:58 PM PACIFIC |
 Imagination, creativity, etc, Guy F, 26. Oct 2003 01:06 | ||
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| I'm reading Daniel Negreanu's column in Card Player magazine and I came across some words that describe an attitude or way of playing that I don't understand yet. The sentence starts, "I was making do with my imagination, without a hint of a premium hand...". I've seen other references here and there to play that is "creative" or "imaginative" or some other phrase that, to my novice eyes, looks like a euphemism for "playing crummy hands". What qualities separate "foolishly playing bad starting hands" from "boldly imaginative"? Well - winning, obviously . And in his case being recognized as a big-leaguer at a table doesn't hurt any. But it must surely be more than just hindsight from the result (win and they call you a genius, lose and they call you an idiot). I'm just trying to figure out the conditions under which playing a hand that, by a textbook, would be lousy, would actually be profitable. It's more than just bluffing, right? But what is "being creative", really? | ||
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| Re: Imagination, creativity, etc, Angel, 26. Oct 2003 01:43 | ||
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| I haven't read Daniel's column this month so I'll refrain from commenting on it or speculating on what he might have meant but profitable creativity is something I'll weigh in on. Creativity is exploiting edges that others, playing a more rote style of play will miss. You know for instance that 83o is a trash hand - right? But whether 83o is a trash hand or not actually depends. If you are in the cutoff position - it's been folded around to you; the button folded out of turn, the SB is telegraphing a fold and the BB is terrified of you - well then 83o just became a monster. You probably know that - most people can see that with a little experience but most never learn to actually pay attention and seize those opportunities. If you let that situation pass by - then you just gave up a little edge equity. And you gave it to someone who is going to try to use it to crush you. Maybe not - you might have given it to a passive player who will give it to the tight aggressive player at the table and he will try to crush you with chips that should be in your stack. Raising with 83o in that spot would be creative. Figuring out how to win with it if the BB calls would be even more so. Manipulating pot odds so that your opponents are making a mistake in calling - raising to cause one of your opponents to misread your hand or to set up a bluff on the next round. Or...it can be a euphemism for playing crummy hands. ;) That line actually wasn't just to be funny. Not a whole lot of pro's last the test of time. Most of them become addicted to euphemisms like creativity and they create themselves out of a job. | ||
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| Re: Imagination, creativity, etc, worm, 26. Oct 2003 11:26 | ||
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| I have often run into the situation were my tight averagely skilled play leads the table to learn what I am in the flop for. If the flop comes lower than j, then they have no fear in betting me out of it. A new strategy that I am trying is to get caught playing something awful like 35o every once in awhile to make them think a little when I drop into a pot. There is a fine line that I am trying to find to keep from playing it too much, it is too tempting to play 45s and call it time to give false image. But after reading your post I think I will now call it creative playing. | ||
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| Re: Imagination, creativity, etc, Guy F, 26. Oct 2003 16:23 | ||
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| Worm, I think I know what you mean about keeping your opponents guessing what you have. I can see how having a reputation as someone who only plays premium hands would scare people away any time you got involved in a pot - especially if you raised somewhere along the way. The impression I've gotten, though, about this notion of playing "creatively" is that they're doing whatever it is to actually win pots, not just get more callers for the occasions when they do have real hands. I dunno, maybe I've gotten the wrong impression. That's part of why I'm trying to get a better definition of what it means to be "imaginative" and how it differs from plain old bluffing. In the context of Negraneau's column, it seemed that he was getting consistently awful starting hands, but managed to not lose as much ground to the other players as he would have if he simply played what he called "ABC poker" and folded all the trash hands. I'm taking Angel's comment about "Figuring out how to win with it if the BB calls..." to mean the same thing. Heck, this is probably what Phil Hellmuth gets $10K a day to teach people in private lessons! I'm not expecting to be able to make these kinds of plays any time soon, if ever. It may just require more kilowatts of brainpower to keep track of players tendencies than I can generate. I'll be happy if I can just learn what it is they're doing, even if I can't do it myself - in the same way I used to understand what Wayne Gretsky did to set up scoring plays even though I had no hope of ever making those moves myself. | ||
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