Question for Jim Brier/Bob C.- flush vs flush?

There's an interesting thread in the small-stakes hold'em forum; the link is below, for anyone who's curious. Basically it comes down to some players liking suited connectors such as 98s in middle position after three limpers, whereas I, as a novice, don't like that in low-limit games where most of my opponents are playing any suited face card--Jxs, Qxs, what have you. I quoted from p. 34 of "Middle Limit Poker," to wit: "In a loose game, it is common for one flush to loose to a higher flush ... When a lot of hands are getting played preflop, one of the common hand types the loose players seem to like is a suited facecard like Qx or Jx. This means your 87s has less of a chance to be drawing live at a flush."


However others (prominently Dynasty, whose posts I respect) came back saying that the above is incorrect, and that a baby flush losing to a bigger flush is not a common occurance at all.


If Jim Brier is out there, I'd like to hear his thoughts; equally so with Bob Ciaffone, though I don't think he's a very frequent poster here.

i almost put a post on there under dynasties agreeing with him. i do agree. it isnt that common. some of the biggest pots are won by the baby flushes. they may be playing Qxs, but its probably not your suit. and if it is, thats 2 cards you wont be privy to on the flop.

it can happen, but i definitely dont see it as common.


b

OK, so you're afraid your baby flush won't stand at the river. Let's say there's a 3-flush on board and you're splashing around with something like 98s. The third of your suit fell at the river and voila - you now have a flush but are somehow terified that XYs is gonna take another bet or two from you with a bigger flush.


Hmm, let's see:

13 of each suit in deck

you have 2, 3 more on board so 8 left

45 cards remain in deck, of which 8 are spades

8:45 = 1:5.625

odds for someone to have 1 is 1:5.625

OK, he has one so now only 7 left ... so 1:6.43 odds for the second suited card

.

.

.

Odds for any person you fear to have 2 of the suit? 1:(5.625*6.43) = 1:36.2, or about 1:36.


OK, you feel very unlucky and are SURE someone beat the 1:36 odds working in your favor. Well ... those are the odds for any one player to have ANY flush. If your flush is 98s it's essentially mid-pack. There are a few flushies that you can beat even if someone else shows one down, although unless that person is in the big blind and got in cheap or free that's simply not likely unless you're in a really loose game. Regardless, not only is someone going to have to beat the long odds to even show another flush, it's also gonna have to be bigger than yours.


OK, there are 3 people still in the pot at the river other than you? 3 * 1:36 = 3:36, or about 1:12 for any of them to also show down a flush.


Feel better? In closing: "it's better to be suited" and "bet your flush!"


(Caveat: I'm a total idiot so my math may be waaaaayyy off here, but I bet it's at least close.)

Flush over flush happens, but I wouldn't say that it's a common occurrence. It's certainly not common enough that I will readily abandon a made flush or even a draw. While I grant you that I've been playing less and less hold'em of late, I can't remember the last time I was in a flush-over-flush confrontation, let alone on the wrong end of one.


I've said this before, but I think that Brier and Ciaffone have an almost irrational fear of the nuts. I think this stems from a couple of things. First off, Ciaffone's main game is Omaha, where nut hands are a lot easier to come by. Flush over flush is a common occurrence in Omaha. The other factor is that Ciaffone plays a lot of big bet poker, where one can lose his entire stack with one bad call. If you make a bad call (or bet or raise) with a small flush at limit hold'em, it only costs you a bet or two whether that's $4 or $160 or $2000. There's a world of difference.

Have noticed a few errors, but final figures should not be affected assuming they were correct in first place ... mainly semantics.


For example, I said "odds for someone to have 1 (of your suit) is 1:5.625" when I meant these were the odds for an opponent's first card to be of the suit. The following "1:6.43 odds" is then for the second card to be of the suit, assuming the frst card already is.


Anyhow, seems clear that flush-against-flush is not too common with a 3-flush on the board.

The other nite I was playing 10-20 hold'em and it was 6 handed. I had KcJc on the button and raised w/ 3 players in. The flop came Qs 8s 3s... some one bet, raised, called, I folded. They all ended up showing down a flush w/ the best hand K high flush. WOW! I never seen that, especially with only 6 players. It is a good thing I didn't try to buy a pot there!

You don't have to worry too much (in limit hold'em) about one flush getting beaten by another. I didn't check Cautious Lee's math, but it looks about right. Most of the time, your small flushes are perfectly good. And if they're not, you lose just a couple of bets because you're not going to war with a non-nut flush. Are you?


Omaha is a completely different situation.


Big-bet (pot- and no-limit) is completely different because you can get broke with a non-nut flush.


Regards, Lee

My interpretation of Ciaffone/Brier's statements regarding these things is simply that flush-over-flush situations do happen, more frequently than we might think, and that this devaluates the hand in question. Now, many of these hands might be marginal to begin with, and it might not take very much devaluation to make it not worthwhile to play certain hands.


My own rather uncertain opinion on small and medium suited connectors is that you really need opponents with quite poor post-flop play for them to be worthwhile playing. I believe that if you do not have a big post-flop advantage, you might as well throw them away. I guess Mason would disagree, and who am I to go against him, but, hey, I can't help questioning some of his advice, like that you should steal-raise with 53s, maybe even 32s, 54 and worse. What worse hands are there heads up? Well, maybe one day I'll understand this. But as of now, Ciaffone and Brier's advice makes much more sense to me.

The hand that got me hooked on hold 'em was exactly like that. It was the first time I'd ever played hold 'em, and I got dealt A6s and flopped the flush, so did two other players at the the table one with Kx and the other with Jx. Needless to say, it was a great payoff, and I was hooked on hold 'em from then on.


Good luck all,


Fitz

"that you should steal-raise with 53s, maybe even 32s, 54 and worse"


If you were to correctly follow our advice you would virtually never make these plays.

You should understand that if you are in late position and are the first player to enter the pot, any hand that you should play is almost always worth a raise. This usually means hands in Groups 1-7, maybe those in Group 8, and even worse hands if you think your opponents are tight enough that you have a decent chance to steal the blinds. [HPFAP21, p32, my accentuations]


Now, Mason, this does not sound like you are saying that I should "virtually never" raise with 53s, which is supposed to be a Group 7 hand. On the contrary it sounds to me that you are saying that I should usually raise with 53s if I am in late position and noone else has entered the pot and the remaining players are not loose, as stated in the previous paragraph in HPFAP21. Now, maybe one could interpret the above quote from HPFAP21 to mean that one should "virtually never" steal raise in late position with Group 8 hands like 32s and 54, and worse, but I think it would be hard to interpret it to mean that one should "virtually never" steal raise with Group 7 hands like 53s, 43s and 64s. You might know that you did not mean these hands, and probably not Group 6 hands like 54s, 75s and 86s, or Group 5 hands such as 65s and 76s, but how should someone trying to learn what is right be able to know this? Is there some general statement in a completely different part of the book that you think should make it clear that you did not mean these hands? Because the statement as it stands is pretty straight on, no exceptions hinted upon. One has to either mistrust clear statements in the book, or read so ridiculously much between the lines that you more or less already has to know the answer to be able to do this. And where to draw the line? I still can't really figure out where YOU thinks that the line should be drawn. I know that the line is pretty fuzzy, and depends on the tightness and the skill of the remaining players, but nonetheless, you DO draw a line, but it seems so strangely drawn to me that I do indeed believe that most people that do not already know the answer will misinterpret your advice. I did. I found it really, really strange that I should steal raise with these small and medium suited connectors, but I thought "hey, these guys are supposed to know what they are talking about — so even if I do not understand it, it must be right."


I don't know. Maybe it's all just because these are very advanced concepts that are not easy to understand. Or maybe, just maybe, the information in HPFAP is oftentimes presented quite poorly, incompletely, and in a confusing way. And maybe the steal-raising info in MLHP is wrong or too much simplified, since it seems to make much more sense to me. I don't know. But I have a hunch.


Out of curiosity, what hands not mentioned as normal candidates for blinds steal attempts in late position in MLHP would YOU like to include in this category? I just can't figure this out by reading HPFAP21, so I ask you directly. Anyone elses interpretation of the advice given in HPFAP21 regarding this would also be most interesting.

While I feel that it is not expressed clearly enough in HPFAP, I think the general idea is to be more inclined to raise with group 8 hands like A9o, Q9o, J8o etc than with hands like 32s. I do know that the book does make a note of hands that are better played multiway and this should of course be taken into consideration when on a steal raise.

try reading the shorthanded section. itll help better with steal raises and how to play. at this point, your not in a ringgame play here. its a shorthanded play now. adjust accordingly to the way the players defend.


b

that section will also give you ideas as to why you wouldnt raise with hands like 35s. and what you would raise with...


unless of course the blinds are extrememly tight.


b

Where in the shorthanded section do you find this advice on what hands to raise with? I don't find it. It's mostly concerned with how to defend your blind(s). The only advice on what to steal with in this section seems to be that if the blind(s) are too tight, you should more or less raise with everything, and if they are loose, you should actually call with some hands instead of raising. Also, I took this section to be mostly on heads up play, so you would be raising from the small blind. Anyway, the advice is extremely general, except for the advice on what hands to call a raise with in the big blind if your opponent raises almost every hand, and in this case it is adviced that you call with all small suited (semi-)connectors except 42s and 32s. And then they add that you "might add in a few more hands such as J8s, 98 or 97." So a 53s or a 43s is considered a better hand heads up than a J8s, obviously. This seems strange to me. So, 53s and 43s has something like a 50% better chance to flop a straight draw. Wow. That must of course make it slightly better than J8s heads up. Right...


Please tell me, bernie, what ideas the shorthanded section gives you that tells you that you shouldn't raise with 53s and what you SHOULD raise with, and why those "ideas" couldn't be more clearly expressed in the preflop section in the beginning of the book instead of being hidden behind very general statements in a newly added specialized section in the middle of the book, because THAT I don't get.

Yes, there is a note somewhere in the book about small and medium suited connectors being "better" in multiway pots. I do not remember exactly where right now. But I don't think it was much more than a rather short note. Now, should that make people reading the book to learn hold 'em understand that a straight forward, clear statement at another place in the book has to be rather largely modified? Well, I can tell you that almost all who not already know the answer will misinterpret the statement. And is this unavoidable? No, clearly it could and should be rather easily fixed.


I think that it is very hard for someone who is an expert at a certain subject to understand the exact meaning of what he is actually saying, because there is so much that he takes for granted that isn't at all obvious for the reader or the listener. Many experts fall into this trap — many academic researchers are more or less unable to explain their results to those not familiar with the field, and to teach their subject well to those less enlightened. HPFAP is an example of this, in my opinion.


By the way, Wanderer, you only considered Group 8 hands — do you find 54s to be a good steal raise hand?

"I still can't really figure out where YOU thinks that the line should be drawn."


A lot depends on the game. Over the years, players in the blinds are defending their blinds and playing back (for three bets) more and more. This means that the marginal steal hands are being even more marginalized. In the games I play in I virtually never make these steals any more. In a game of different characterisitics they might become an automatic play. That's what being an advanced player is about, and it's why you need to read and understand the whole book.


That is you need to work with all the concepts and balance them. As we say in the introduction (see page 5 of HPFAP-21):


"Keep in mind, when trying to master hold ’em, that at times many of the following concepts will seem to contradict each other. For example, some concepts might recommend that you bet your hand right out, while other concepts will advise you to go for a check-raise. One of the keys to successful hold ’em play is to balance these ideas, which will help you select the best strategy the vast majority of the time."


Finally, keep in mind that poker, and especially hold 'em, is not like blackjack. When you strive to exactly quantify everything as you seem to be doing, and fail to learn and understand the underlying theory, you're asking to become only a mediocre player at best, and thus you will stay clueless.

Dear Mr. Malmuth.


Thanks for your answer (I'm starting to get a little formal here /images/smile.gif). I am not pushing for any exact lines that are right in all circumstances. If you think so, you have misunderstood me. I am merely looking for an understanding of how what depends on what and to what degree. Abstract enough for you? /images/wink.gif The thing is that YOU DO draw a pretty clear-cut line in HPFAP, without discussing the exceptions in any kind of satisfactory detail, and definitely not the hows and whys of what depends on what and to what degree. That is actually what I am complaining about. But then again, when you have drawn this line, I am merely questioning how that line have been drawn, in the context that you have drawn it. And if you are not willing to discuss this because such lines should not be drawn in the first place, I see you kind of stumbling on your own feet.


I actually thought that there was some kind of equilibrium, where stealing and defending was optimal, and that if the blinds were defending less, you should steal more, and if they defended more, you should perhaps steal less. Now, I thought it was that optimal equlibrium that you somewhat defined in HPFAP (Group 7 or better), but I was obviously wrong? And why are you not discussing these things in more detail? Shouldn't this be possible?


As regarding the "theory" that you are referring to that I should learn, where should I learn that? Certainly not in HPFAP or even The Theory of Poker, because if you call what is in HPFAP a "theory", you are mocking the word theory my dear Mason, and even The Theory of Poker is not so much a theory as it is a collection of basic concepts that a proper theory should be based upon. A theory with just one theorem? With no proofs, no coherent stringency whatsoever? Get out of here!


Don't get me wrong — The Theory of Poker is a great book, but it's not what it could or "should" be when you consider the title. Oh, maybe I am out of line here, maybe it really is a proper theory, but it certainly is "nothing" more than a general theory, and what is needed is a detailed theory. That it certainly is not. And HPFAP is nowhere close.


Going back to the specific, I find it very fascinating that you do not steal at all in the games you play. I understand that this must come down to the definition of "stealing" — I figure that you do raise, but that it in that case is a raise for value, and hence not a steal. I see now that this probably is the "equlibrium" that I was talking about earlier. If your opponents defend perfectly, you do not steal, you only raise for value. The question of what hands have raising value depending on what factors still need to be determined, of course. I doubt I will find any clear explanations in any book.

No, I don't consider 54s to be a good steal hand most of the time. I wholeheartedly agree that the book does a poor job of communicating some ideas, but I don't think that bad advice is ever given as long as you are experienced enough to interpret the text (it is for advanced players after all). IMO, the book would benefit from the input of a true professional writer for communicating certain ideas, but it does not give any advice that I consider to be poor. I know that once I gained a good amount of playing experience, I was never totally baffled or mislead by what was being presented. Also, as bernie mentioned, the shorthanded section is also good for looking at steal situations. Basically, I agree with you that the text might not always communicate its ideas fully (taking certain knowledge for granted), but I also believe that if read by the target audience, it does a very good job. After all, I would think that it is intuitively common sense in poker that high cards have more value heads-up that baby suited connectors.

"Please tell me, bernie, what ideas the shorthanded section gives you that tells you that you shouldn't raise with 53s and what you SHOULD raise with, and why those "ideas" couldn't be more clearly expressed in the preflop section in the beginning of the book instead of being hidden behind very general statements in a newly added specialized section in the middle of the book, because THAT I don't get."


sorry, i didnt say it was obvious. look to the 'starting hands' section of shorthanded. this will give you an idea as to what you may try to steal with. they have a rundown of hands to play. such as: any A, Kxs, pairs..etc...

your in a shorthanded style play here.


i do agree, that they couldve put a 'steal' section in there, but this section may help find what your looking for. or at least some ideas for shorthanded type situations.


one difference is the 'stealers' raising standards. this wont be in the shorthanded section. i believe its in the live blind section. pretty sure anyway. thats the main adjustment your looking for when defending. some guys only steal with premium, others with many other hands.


one way i learned a little about these types of situations, was that i played 5 max tables online...then i transferred it over to full games, steal situations. it gave me a core to build off of for said situations.

i found i tightened up a little through adjusting, but still fairly loose.


hope this helps...


b

in case of steal raising with 35s...they say you want the pot multiway. you do. but you want more than 2 opponents for this hand...


the time to play this would be if say 6+ limpers to you in LP. then it might be playable. 35s isnt going to fair much in a shorthanded situation.

there's a difference between multiway, and shorthanded. and with low suited connectors, you want many seeing the flop with you.


the groupings are general guidliines. and some hands in certain groups are better than others in certain situations...like stated above.


ciao


b

You seem to be looking for all the answers when in fact there are no absolutes. HPFAP is kind of like a poker playbook....there is no "do this in all situation" kind of guidelines. It simply assumes that you are already a good hold em player and discusses many situations that come up in play and possible approaches to these situations. Poker is not the kind of game where absolute guidelines can be drawn, and HPFAP gives you all the factors you need to consider before making a playing decision. I have reread my copy again and again, and when I post hands here that I had trouble with, I also usually can find an example in the text that I didn't take into account. I think that you need to consider why your opinion about these texts is in the minority, and understand that true understanding of these concepts can often come only through a "trial by fire" at the Hold Em Tables.


Jeff

I think Clueless has the more valid position here. It's not enough, Mason, to be able to point to the disclaimer in HPFAP (as you are wont to do) and say that it excuses anything in the text that is out of date or confusingly written. In this specific case, if times have changed as you say they have, you and David should bring the text up to date. David did it for his previous hold'em text when the blind structure changed, and that's one of the reasons that I as a beginning hold'em player got so much value out of it.


It would be a major benefit to everyone if 2+2 reworked HPFAP to address some of these minor yet nagging deficits. I for one would buy a reworked version!

Look for my answer to Mason on this point--but I think the real issue here is the quality of writing in HPFAP. Yes, hold'em is a difficult subject, and yes, HPFAP is packed with excellent nuggets of dense information--but it is also frequently very muddy for no reason other than it was not well enough put together at the time of writing. Moreover Mason seems to be implying that the text has gotten out of date. Since 2+2 boasts of its high standards, it's not unreasonable for readers to be demanding as well.

"(Caveat: I'm a total idiot so my math may be waaaaayyy off here, but I bet it's at least close.)"


I'd take that bet. You are not approaching doing the calculation correctly so you are not getting the correct answer.


For example to calculate the odds of exactly one other player also holding your suit (lets call them clubs) in a 10-handed game: first calculate the probabilities of their being exactly 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 clubs in the other 18 hole cards. Then for each of these cases calculate the probability that 2 clubs are both in a single hand. Then sum the results. Follow a similar procedure for calculating that 2, 3, or 4 opponents also have flushes.


In a game with ten players the probability that no other player will have two cards in the flush suit when you you have a flush with exactly three of your suit on board is 76.2%. So the probability that at least one of your nine opponents has a two cards in the flush suit is 23.8%. In terms of odds this is a little over 3 to 1 against.


In reality the probability of running into another flush will be somewhat lower unless all of your opponents will play any two suited cards to the river.

It simply assumes that you are already a good hold em player


However, we want to state that by the time you reach expert status you shouldn't be thinking in terms of hand groups. [...] But if you are just getting started playing, we know of no better approach. [HPFAP21, p.17]


Yeah, it really sounds like they assume that you are already a good hold 'em player....not! If they were, how good an idea is it to use an explanatory framework designed exclusively for beginners?


My God — when are you people going to realize that there are serious flaws in this book?


And I am certainly not looking for "do this in all situation" kind of guidelines — if you think so, you have missed my points completely.

look to the 'starting hands' section of shorthanded


The "'starting hands' section"? I do not have such a section in my copy of HPFAP21. What page does that section start on?

My God, bernie — do you get even one word of what I am saying?

After all, I would think that it is intuitively common sense in poker that high cards have more value heads-up that baby suited connectors


I do think that David Sklansky have pointed out and stated that using intuition in poker can lead you very wrong. I do firmly believe in this. Intuition should only be used when our explicit, "logical," knowledge is not there to help us. Of course intuition can do a very good job, for some people, but it's place should be in things like opponent modelling, not in tactical decisions.


Anyway, HPFAP21 is not targeted only towards already good players, at least not the preflop section — see one of my posts below. And when the supposedly most trustworthy authors in the poker world writes what seems like a clear statement, I tend to distrust my own "intuition" before I start to distrust these experts.


Now, today, I know not to trust what they say as they say it, because they might mean something quite different from what they are actually saying, and only God knows why they don't say what they actually do mean, but earlier i did take their word for it.


And God only knows why they don't make the effort to explain things more clearly than they do, because it is clearly not impossible to do so. I actually think that they deliberately made HPFAP harder than necessary to understand correctly, just so that there would be lots of ambitious but still not good players out there. That would be a good thing for the real experts.

Thanks Mannish. It's good to know that there are other people out there that see what I see.

Shouldn't you welcome a few weak spots in the book, spots that some editing could make clearer for all readers? I'm glad they're there, and I cringe when people complain about them. It's the readers who are willing to research and go beyind the books who will gain the biggest advantage over the masses of players who only study modestly. Let the unclear parts stand and become one of those who makes the effort to go beyond the books. Otherwise, there is no way to gain as great a knowledge edge over the crowd. The 2+2 books are generally the best, and they provide a great foundation and knowledge base to work from. But I say don'tencourage the authors to make it all crystal clear. Be thankful the authors didn't completely lay it all out on a platter (Lord knows they did lay enough of it out.) so anyone willing to shell out $30, but unwilling to do more could become a pro level player.

I am actually starting to believe that this was done deliberately. What other explanation could there be?

I don't want to startt a flame war, but your post sounds a mite like the conspiracy theories that have been thrown about a few times. I agree that intuition should not be relied upon, but in this case, it is correct. Because of this, S&M probably decided, either purposely or not, to be slightly inspecific. I find it unlikely that they are trying to create a bunch of pretenders. I am quite confident that many of the successful players on this site will tell you that HPFAP has done little to none in the way of hurting their game and much to help it. And it IS targeted towards already decent (not necessarily good) players. Mason has repeatedly stated this and I believe him. The starting hand chart is supposed to be better explained in the original Hold'em Poker by Sklansky, which is targeted towards beginners (I'll admit I haven't actually read it). The value of HPFAP for me has come in part from trying to interpret the sometimes akward language and complicated concepts (still would be nice if a real writer had helped though). In a weird sort of way, not understanding what they are trying to say helps me think it through more thoroughly and thus understand it better in the end. Even if I am totally incorrect about this one specific case, it is fairly minor in the grand scheme of the book and does not provide convincing evidence that the book is purposely trying to avoid creating expert players. I do know that I for one, arrived at the correct conclusion from the material and did not start trying to steal raise with 32s all the time. Many of the experts are those who are willing to spend hours studying, reading and rereading various books and articles and applying them to different scenarios. So in that sense, if some guy bought HPFAP and read it once, he would probably not be much of a threat to the top players. This of course is not because the book aims to do this, but because most people are not willing to put in the time it takes to be great. Just my humble opinion.

page 187....


but use it as a rough outline...since its for HU or 3way play...

i tightened up from this page quite a bit and only play the upper hands. since its a shorthanded situation, but not a shorthanded table.

but this should give you a starting point.

also adjust for the blind players...some are tighter, and some looser. the better the player in the blinds, the better i like my hand to be...

try and think in terms of HU hands, and what hands play well there...


experimentation and experience are the key...


b

i tried to help clarify some stuff for ya, but i guess it seems i wasted my time based on your response...


if your sooo concerned about a concept in there that may be used once in a blue moon, and cant see the point of putting the move in anyway, well, only experience will help you find the dividing lines. thats the bottom line.


holdem to me, in general, is a very gray area game. there are so many factors to take into account. even players play changes during a session. its just not a definitive game...


but i tried...your welcome...


and good luck


b

Actually, if you hold HPFAP up to the mirror, you can see a pattern of glyphs that indicate what Sklansky and Malmuth REALLY mean to say. But it's only for elite poker players, not the rabble. Thank God the book is poorly written; it keeps fools like you rereading the text to unscramble it until you go blind.


Meanwhile, I hope YOU are at least posting incorrect and incomprehensible advice to this forum to deceive your weak and feeble opposition. If you aren't, shame on you for not living up to your own advice.

p. 187? That's the section called "The Hands to Call With." It's concerned with what hands you should call with in the big blind when faced with a raise from an aggressive opponent in the small blind in a heads up game. Not what hands you should raise with in the cutoff or on the button or even in the small blind heads up. Have you misunderstood this so completely?


And this advice specifically includes 53s and 43s, without references to any hand groups. Now, the situation should be somewhat different defending from the big blind compared to raising from the small (or late position) because of the different pot odds that you get, but I am still not sure that 43s is a better hand to call with than J8s, or why.


Anyway, if one connects this section in the shorthanded section with the info on how to attack the blinds in the late position preflop section like you do, it should only confirm that one is supposed to, against "normal" opponents, make a steal raise with 53s and 43s, as they are specifically pointed out at both places, with no reservations (in connection to or reasonably close to or reasonably clearly, at least), and in different words.


By the way, bernie, it would be interesting to hear what in your opinion makes the situation when all opponents have folded to you on the button in a 10-handed game different from the situation where you are first to act on the button in a 3-handed game.

I agree with you that poker is not a game of clear cut truths, but it's not voodoo either. If one can develop great intuition, that's wonderful, and probably very important to becoming a really good player. But still, poker is more academic in its practicing than riding a bike. And even the theoretical questions of bike-riding can be very interesting, and even useful in practice.


This whole debate reminds me of something that I once read regarding some other highly skilled profession. I do not remember what profession, maybe it was translation, mabe something else, but anyway, an academic researcher or something like that commented on how reluctant the practicing professionals were to really understand the theoretical side of what they were doing. He really thought that certain theoretical knowledge could only help them, but they seemed to react more like it would hurt them. It strikes me as very similar to this when I constantly get to hear that I should just get the experience, and I will understand. Hey — there's two kinds of understanding: theoretical and practical. I want to get both kinds of understanding.


By the way, I think the profession in question was musicians.

I think you misunderstood me. I'm not saying they intentionally obscured or wrote incorrect advice. I'm just saying there are some spots that could be clarified with some additional editing. And I'm saying that it's a bit incomplete. The best players do the work to learn beyond the books, to fill in the gaps. That gives them an edge. So my point is that if the books were to lay it all out on a platter, much of that additional edge would be unattainable.


I understand that this idea prensents a question about intellectual honesty. And I'm ambivalent about that. But I won't pretend there's no value for good players in the fact that not everything can be easily gleened from the books.

I don't misunderstand you at all. Your argument, such as it is, has validity only as it applies to readers in all fields (not just hold'em) needing to think about and beyond texts; it has no validity whatsoever as a defense for incoherent writing.


For a simple and obvious contrast, the Roy West book on beginning 7-stud is much easier to read, much better organized, etc.--even though it too is close to being a "tape recorder" book, as the Sklansky/Malmuth collaborations are reputed to be. It has a few ambiguities that thoughtful readers will resolve for themselves, but by and large it speaks plainly and clearly. I haven't noticed that this clarity has reduced the number of lousy players at low-limit stud tables to be taken advantage of.

I never said it was a defense for incoherent writing. More like a blessing in disguise. I said only that some incomplete or unclear points happen to allow some players to gain a special edge. This is a point which, though perhaps not unique to poker, is unusual in other fields. Most other fields do not involve direct competitive wagering whereby such an edge has great value to the indivudual.

Matt Lessinger has an interesting article in Poker Digest about one flush losing to a higher flush. You guys may want to check it out.

the latest has his pkt 5s article.

is it an older issue? i dont think the new one is out yet...

if so...which one?


thanks..


b

I'll check it out, because I respect your opinion Jim.


But after his article on playing suited connectors for multiple preflop bets and mucking pocket pairs, I have to warn you that Matt doesn't have a whole lot of credibility left with me.


But I'll give him another chance.

Well, (grumble), you're probably right.

bernie, it must the latest issue since I read it just yesterday in the cardroom.

I had a feeling we actually agreed for the most part on the various points in question. /images/smile.gif

so did i. but the issue i read was the top 50 movers and shapers...

and matt lessinger's article is about getting shotdown at the shooting star.


maybe my cardroom doesnt have the new one yet...


but i checked online, and that was the latest one i saw...


b

It is the issue with Lyle Berman on the cover. Matt's article is on Page 32 entitled "What a Flop!... For Someone Else".