Complete Book of Holden Poker by Gary Carson Vs. SSH ????

[VeryTnA]

I'm surfing the net and reading SSH and notice several footnotes refering to Gary Carson book. I flip over to RGP for some research and read the following:
[ QUOTE ]
>Who started the "AA does not play well in multi-way pots" fallacy?
>
I think the meaningless phrase "play well" was originated by Mason Malmuth.

I'm pretty sure that the HEFAP book claims that big pairs lose value in multi-way pots.

So my guess is that fallacy originated with Malmuth.

The guy is very good at marketing poker books, but he doesn't really understand poker very well.

Gary Carson

[/ QUOTE ]

Whats up with that? Carson is getting free advertising in SSH. Talk about a stab in the back.

Is Carsons book any good? It must be worth a read if SSH is making mention about some plays.

SSH is very well written and easy to understand. It is a must read along with 21st Century and Theory.

[Ed Miller]

Is Carsons book any good? It must be worth a read if SSH is making mention about some plays.

Carson's book contains some insightful and original ideas. It also contains some really bizarre advice (e.g., folding AK sometimes to a single raise (p.48), cold-calling raises sometimes from the button with A9 and KT offsuit (p.49), "opening" from UTG in a loose-aggressive game with J8s and similar hands (p.154), limp-reraising from the button with 97s (p.266), etc.). I don't recommend it to newer players who would have trouble seperating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. But if you feel comfortable with your ability to identify and ignore some silliness, Carson's book is probably worth reading.

SSH is very well written and easy to understand. It is a must read along with 21st Century and Theory.

Thank you. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[moondogg]

Take everything Carson says on RGP with a grain of salt. As Ed noted, his book is not that bad, but he has been very critical of 2+2, and a lot of his posts on RGP on various topic suggest that he's a little insane, IMHO. Many have commented that comparing his book to his RGP posts seems like Jekyll and Hyde.

[bygmesterf]

[ QUOTE ]

Whats up with that? Carson is getting free advertising in SSH. Talk about a stab in the back.

Is Carsons book any good? It must be worth a read if SSH is making mention about some plays.

SSH is very well written and easy to understand. It is a must read along with 21st Century and Theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gary Carson's book was (though there are some atnecentets in from Mike Caro) the first to explain that in loose games, where people are playing lots of hands, the best draw is the best hand. Your goal in such a game, is to have a dominating draw, (either to the nuts, or with many outs) and then pound away since you are getting good bet odds.

This is different than the aproach in HEFAP, which you are trying to make your "made" hand stand up via knockout plays and trying to charge draws as much as possible.

Much Carson's thinking comes from what sklansky calls the horse race paradox, and Morton's theorem. The best example to illustrate this is from draw lowball (Gary Carson used to play No Limit Lowball, at Artichoke Joes.).

You have 97432, Player A has X-852A you are 7:5 the favorite on winning the hand.

You have 97432, Player A has X-852A, and Player B has X-8652. Now you are a dog to win the hand, since the odds are that one or both of your opponents will make a better hand than yours. Its futile to try and make your 9 stand up with knock out plays if you cant be sure that they will work.

Now imagine this case. You have X-432A, Player A has 8642A, Player B has X-7432, and Player C has X-864A.

You actully have the best of it, since you have the best draw and the odds to draw to it (3 to 1 on making a 7 or better). Player A is going to lose money after the draw from having to call. Player B will sometimes to lose to you, (Probably lose 2BB when you raise), and Player C is just donating to everyone else.

Analgous situations come in loose hold'em games, where the best draw(s) and not the current best hand is a favorite to win the pot. There are just too many "bad cards" that will make the fields hands, and not enough bricks. Gary's opinion is that HEFAP's loose games section did not take this factor into account, and that DS and MM refused to admit that this was an important concept.

This spat goes back a long time, and if you browse the older archive you will see that Gary and Badger asked to have all thier posts excised from the archives, after one too many spats with Malmuth.

[AliasMrJones]

[ QUOTE ]
You have 97432, Player A has X-852A, and Player B has X-8652. Now you are a dog to win the hand, since the odds are that one or both of your opponents will make a better hand than yours. Its futile to try and make your 9 stand up with knock out plays if you cant be sure that they will work.

[/ QUOTE ]
The question, though, is not whether you're a dog to win pot. The question is whether your chance to win the pot is greater than your fair share. 3-handed your fair share is 33%. If you have a 40% chance to win the hand, The odds are that one or both of your opponents will win the hand, but you still make money with every dollar you put into the pot.

[bygmesterf]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have 97432, Player A has X-852A, and Player B has X-8652. Now you are a dog to win the hand, since the odds are that one or both of your opponents will make a better hand than yours. Its futile to try and make your 9 stand up with knock out plays if you cant be sure that they will work.

[/ QUOTE ]
The question, though, is not whether you're a dog to win pot. The question is whether your chance to win the pot is greater than your fair share. 3-handed your fair share is 33%. If you have a 40% chance to win the hand, The odds are that one or both of your opponents will win the hand, but you still make money with every dollar you put into the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are missing the point, or more specifically you are applying a concept (%win vs %money contributed) to the wrong situation where it does not apply. But that is not at all the point of my post . The point is that what was the best hand 1 on 1 may not the money favorite against two (or more) draws that dominate it. Broadly, in many multiway pots, the hand with the most EV/equity is best draw and usually not the current best hand on flop.

Gary Carson was the first person to talk about this concept (Best draw, vs field of made hands and dominated draws) and develop playing methods using this concept in a book about hold'em.

Footnote: This concept is pretty well known by lowball players (as Gary Carson once was), but wasnt applied to hold'em before he, (and Andrew Morton, Bill Chen, Mike Caro) developed this in the late 1990s.

[Beavis68]

I hated Carson's book when I read it. I have never seen Carson make any interesting or useful posts on RGP, he is arogant beyond belief for what if anything he has actually accomplished (kind of sounds like Konik doesn't it).

Yeah, there are some good concepts in the book, but they are buried is such horrible righting and disguised by such misguided ideas, that it is useless. SSH puts these concepts together so cleanly and soundly, not buried in BS, that it makes makes Carson's book pretty much worthless. I mean, until I read SSH I didnt even know there were any useful ideas in CBH. By the way, how can it be COMPLETE, and only devote 2 pages to NL and PL? Or is it just one page?

[Soleo]

[ QUOTE ]
you are applying a concept (%win vs %money contributed) to the wrong situation where it does not apply

[/ QUOTE ]
Could you please explain why?

[VeryTnA]

Wow...Thanks for the reply. I never expected to hear from one of the authors. Thanks Again!

[pipes]

I love most of the 2+2 books and I also agree that Carson comes off as a pyscho.

But...if you take an unbiased view and read Carson's book, you'll see he expressed many of the key ideas in SSH first. Examples include value betting draws(p 159), counting all of your outs such as backdoor flush draws, raising in late position in loose games with hands such as A8s and QJs(page 150)

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi pipes:

That's not true. We didn't consider Carson's books when we wrote SSH. The only reason he got referenced was that Ed Miller pointed out that in one place we were using a classification system similar to what Carson used.

Also, much of our book is how to play on the later streets. Carson hardly addressed any of this at all.

Best wishes,
Mason