At the meeting last night, there was a spirited discussion about the book and manipulating pot sizes. Some things that occurred to me as the discussion continued.

Sklansky and Miller have me thinking in new ways about the game. Most of us think about a hand like traditional baseball, i.e. station to station or in our case, street by street. That's wrong. We should be thinking about the whole hand and working backward.

If you have a hand that you want to play, that hand should be one that you want to play to the river, not just taking down the pot on the flop. Therefore, you should be thinking about playing a small pot or a big pot. If a big pot, "how can I get all the money in by the river?"

Traditionally, we think about what to do preflop, and then what do we do on the flop. S/M say this is wrong. We should be thinking about lines to take if A. happens or if B. happens on the flop and what we should do depending on the expectation for the hand.

Also, everything about NL is context. Position and opponent are more important than the actual hand. Against this opponent in this position, what do I want to happen?

Without understanding the situation in total, you can't make a judgement about what is the proper line to take.

It's going to take me a long time to fully absorb all the lessons in the book. It's dense, as are all Sklansky theories. Worth the doing.

CJ