"NEVER", Kelvis?

I think that's because too many players imagine unlikely future scenarios. I read a very poor book on NL many years ago (at the beginning of the boom) that argued for calculating implied odds on the ground that after you hit (your nut flush draw, e.g.) your opponent would always call your shove.

*FOUL*

Real strategy discussion in the absurd thinking thread!

Everything in your entire life is just a series of accepted facts if you think about it. It's really not that absurd, it just feels absurd because you've previously accepted as fact in good faith that other hands were the winningest, had you heard from 2+2 previously that its been proven J9s is the best hand you'd probably feel the same way as those guys.

This just blew my mind.

I read lots of stuff in the strat forums that people accept as fact that is terrible advice.

It's not what they think. It's how they think.

We wouldn't say, "Well if the computers say so, it must be true!" No, we would ask, "Which computers?"

To assert that we are the same as them, or that the only difference between us and them is what we have been told to blindly accept, is itself absurd.

After taking down a pot with K3 and two pair: "I always play a big card and a little card because that is what usually comes on the board"

Lotta wisdom there. Must be 90% of flops that come with at least 1 card > 8 and at least 1 card < 8.

No, that surely qualifies, because it is (was even back when that book was published) absurd strategy.

But maybe it deserves its own thread: "Most absurd poker 'thinking' you have read in a poker book"?

Um, yeah. I play bad.

I hear this a lot after somebody tank folds and the other guy shows flush/straight:

"I knew 100% you had a flush, I only had bottom two... If I had a set, I'd have to pay you off"

While their barriers to acceptance may be lower than yours it's never a matter of proving it first hand, it's always simply getting information past our own internal bs detectors. This is why the scientific community won't even get at all excited about even the coolest discovery until it's been peer reviewed and replicated by third parties.

If some of the best, most respected 2+2ers out there got together and wrote a book as a total level where they created lots of simulations stating that J9s was actually the best hand out there because it was hand most likely to win in a cooler post flop so had the greatest implied odds, we can assume most of us would take it as fact and not try to replicate the results on their own to confirm it is true.

This is the where the heart of most conflict exists, where people accepted as fact something without ever having proof. Think gravity, how on earth can any of us actually confirm why things seem to fall down yet because we were told about it as children by authoritative sources we all accept it as fact. Meanwhile global warming, which most of us never heard about until we became adults is incredibly contentious despite also being endorsed by scientists. This is because our bs detectors are more developed as adults and we aren't necessarily being told about global warming by an authoritative source, in fact those I may reach out to for authority on this stuff may be stating that it doesn't exist. Then why evolution vs creationism has conflict but gravity doesn't is they had competing sources so those who grew up surrounded by creationists themselves became creationists and so on.

If you don't believe me next time you see someone post something fake on facebook put the link where snopes rejects it as false in as a comment and see how easily it's ignored.

I don't buy this part. Unless this is a meta-post in this thread?

Maybe 15 or 20 years ago this possibly could have been true I guess ... maybe. If that happened today no one with a clue would believe it ... though I suppose they would be confused as to why the best players were writing it.

Actually, even if we assumed J9s was the hand most likely to win in a cooler, I don't know that, that ensures that J9s would have the greatest implied odds. (not even considering stack size issues)

He's just trying to out philosophize himself. rick, it's not as deep as you think it is. I hope you're at least high right now lol.

lolcatz, that made me laugh. I'm just saying if you guys came in with blank slate and heard it from an authoritative source you'd believe it - you're just too late to the ballgame. This is like gravity vs global warming.

Indeed, I did exactly that earlier this year and the poster replied, "Snopes has been completely debunked!"

I bailed and blocked her. It made me sad, however ...

Snopes has completely debunked being debunked. But, of course, that has been de-de-debunked.

Snopes says the best hand is not J9s, it's 10-9s

Please .... no PLO strat here ...


J9s IS THE BEST HAND ... ever ... It always wins when it's turned over at showdown. The 'problem' is that you only see it 20% of the time when it loses. Therefore it's an 80% winner ... right? I may have some math wrong there. GL

I played in a Charity touramnet over the weekend, where a guy shoved his remaining 9k into a a board witha King and two undercards. The pot was about 40k, and he got called by 99,

"Thats a hell of call," he said turning over his ace high, he spiked his Ace on the river, but the guy was getting 4 to 1 its not that much of hero call

When I Cbet half pot on a 993r flop and the villain complains about how lucky I am before mucking Ace high face up. I don't bother showing my KJo.