Answer to Mason's Question/TTHE

Mason,


I have been running TTHE V3. After reading all the posts in reply to your question of whether TTHE took the number of opponents into account, I went to the Wilson Website to see what's new in V4 (I feel pretty silly not doing this before answering you, in fact, I feel pretty silly not having the latest TTHE *before* writing my own program)...anyway, I have ordered my upgrade, plus some other goodies, like Sid. Also, I have now believe, from these words on Wilsons site, that TTHE V4 *does* take the number of opponents into account:

---------------------------------


NEW FEATURES ADDED IN VERSION 4.0


Advice as you play was expanded and improved


* 20 different sets of strategies before the flop


- based on number of opponents


- selectable degree of raising


* 9 different sets of strategies after the flop


- based on number of opponents

---------------------------------

etc etc etc etc


I am in no way associated with Wilson, except I think it is a wonderful tool.


Mason: You should buy TTHE V4, give us a review! I would love to see what you think of its capabilities. Ok, I know *you* will beat it even if I can't /images/smile.gif But I would love to know how it compares to your typical Bellagio 30-60 game. And I bet Wilson would GIVE you a review copy...I give copies of my 'CRM' software product to the reviewers every day, and I love to do so....


Mark

As for TTHE v4.0 I can tell you this:


I am a novice player and have found it a great learning tool. Yes, it takes # of players and many other things into account.


Two serious shortcomings:

1) Not too hard to beat; I set it to the most difficult settings and beat "Challenge Mike the Advisor" regularly. Have only lost once out of about 10 times so far. This seems due to #2...


2) The profiles do not seem to take into account "what does the other player have and can I best him" as far as I can tell. Thus, the will play into you when they're "clearly" beat. Furthermore, the profiles (opponents) play is decided by complex tables and formulae, and I can tell by their play more or less what they hold. That is to say, I watch how the advisor tells me to play specific hands, and I can spot similar play in my computer opponents. OK, I have studied A LOT of HE books and musings but I'm still no expert. I have also only played perhaps 2500 hands on TTHE and I can beat it now.


Is it worthless, then? Absolutely not. Should I follow its advice to a tee? No again. The deal is that while I generally agree that the advice is good perhaps 95% of the time, when the advisor tells me to do something that seems inherently wrong I question it, debate and usually play it a second time (repeat hand) using the advisor's advice instead of mine. That's a great tool to learn with, and it helps me constantly question my judgement.


If I could change anything, it would be to make the profiles a little more randomized and less predictable.


Still, I think it's great and has taught me rather quickly some fundamental shortcomings in my game which were easy to rectify. My current favorite was to play is set it to pretty difficult and have it rotate opponents periodically while hiding their names so I cannot predict them as easily. I also usually set it to deal only hands worthy of a call or raise pre-flop to get the most out of my study time as I more or less know what pocket cards to avoid playing at all given the current table.


Maybe I'll buy Ace Spade's HE program and write a comparison review some day. Anyone want to donate for a worthy cause?

Jason,


Thanks for your comments. I will be playing with 4.0 very soon to get some new ideas for my own program. And you are 100% right about the randomization. That would make it way way tougher.


Mark

I have been using 4.o ttth for some time and do have to say it is one of the best investments I have made. However one other shortcoimg seems to be that it doesn't slowplay as well as it could.

Even 3.0 is very configurable to slowplay,


Check out the profiles...


Mark

I have never said that TTH is not usefull for beginners. The question is whether it is useful for settling disputes among good players as to how to play hands 15-30 or higher.

As someone who has lost money in the past by following erroneous gambling advice, I would hope that this program stresses the fallibility of its advisor. I can easily envision players losing considerable sums of money trying to emulate the play of the "Advisor" in Wilson's Turbo 7-Stud/8 or Better program. Whether this is a good or bad thing would depend on if they were at my table or not.

And since most of them WON'T be at my table, it would be a bad thing overall.