Sklansky Memorization Challenge

[FishHooks]

This is a HORRIABLE idea, and i'm going to stress it more since it pisses you off. Hell does me memorizing 10 differnt math equasions mean i know what they mean or would I know how to use them? Of course not, the book its self can only cover so many situations, proboly only like 200 examples in the book, how will memorizing anything in there help you? The book's job is to get you to realize WHY these plays are correct and why you should do things in certian situations. The amount of time this would take, would be counter productive, you could be spending this time working on your game....get it now?

[nate1729]

I'm the other party to this bet. We both work on our games plenty. We just want to make this bet to aid our total mastery of a terrific poker book and have some fun doing it. You'll never hear either one of us saying "I can recite long passages from HEFAP, therefore I am better than you at poker;" we're both too intelligent to believe something so silly. What you're missing is that this bet just fits into our poker interests and offbeat senses of humor. Now: do you have any ideas for the execution of this bet?

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
This is a HORRIABLE idea, and i'm going to stress it more since it pisses you off. Hell does me memorizing 10 differnt math equasions mean i know what they mean or would I know how to use them? Of course not, the book its self can only cover so many situations, proboly only like 200 examples in the book, how will memorizing anything in there help you? The book's job is to get you to realize WHY these plays are correct and why you should do things in certian situations. The amount of time this would take, would be counter productive, you could be spending this time working on your game....get it now?

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe if you memorized a dictionary your spelling wouldn't be so HORRIABLE. Proboly. And memorizing 10 equations isn't really an intellectual feat for most of us... In any case, I don't really give a [censored] whether or not this is the best way to boost my win rate. To be honest, I play poker mostly as a hobby, and my number one concern in evaluating a leisure activity is not its EV.

To sum up, I don't particularly care whether this is a stupid idea, or if I could be pondering the play of QJs, or whatever instead. I get drunk and do stupid [censored] every weekend... I enjoy it. This post was actually meant to appeal to people with a similar mindset, not the apparently innumerable tools and assholes who enjoy flaming people. Get it now?

EDIT: And the utility of this prop bet is at least equal to reading or writing endless uninformed reviews of and commentaries on Super System 2, which is apparently the only other thing this forum is used for.

[FishHooks]

How are you friends with the other guy, that should be the real question. You seem normal and he seems crazy. What limits do you guys play, because hold'em for advanced players is really geared toward higher llimit games like 15/30.

[Woody09]

I think that you should give each other 1 month to 6 weeks..........

in that time you should be able to get a hand gun with which to kill yourselves.

[Stuey]

1. Shorten the time. I memorize things quickly and it does not stay with me long. I would make it 1 day. You both have read the book before several times right?

2. How about a double blind challenge format? You pick the part for him to recite. If he fails you get a chance to steal the point if you can recall it. The 3rd guy just checks you both for accuracy.

3. 1 point for a steal 2 for winning a challenge.

*The loser should have to flame the posters that got on you here for a full month. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[LiquidChalance]

I think it is a good idea Bob and Nate. Though a little akward I believe I understand the nature of your wager. I think your only mistake was thinking that people on this site would respond positively (Though when it comes specifically to poker concepts people are eager to prove their intelligence) and consequently believed that someone would give you helpful advice. My advice is conduct the wager that is best geared towards your time constraints, ability to remember and most importantly as you stated what will derive the most utiility.

[nate1729]

Heh. We both grind out 5-10 online and play live between 5-10 and 10-20, with an eye to moving up. We both find HEFAP applicatble and instructive enough to have read it lots of times, discussed it at great length, and wanted to memorize it.

So, I'm embarking on a freelance-writing career, and I'm glad that I could somehow convince you that I'm an authoritative and sensible person. Bobman is the far less crazy of the two of us.

Thanks much for having something to say other than "u suck, what u think memorizing sklansky will make u good at poker?"

--Nate

[joeg]

I think it is quite a good idea, one thing common to all good poker players is a good memory, and contrary to popular belief your memory is good as you make it, if you exersise it then it gets better, memorising recipes from womans weekly would probably improve your poker if you did it often enough as you are also strengthening your concentration and memory. Whats more memorising a book on its own probably wont impove your poker, but if any of you are like me and spend half their time away from the table thinking about poker and strategies having this information to hand will undoubtably improve your analysis of hands played and hence how to play them in future. I doubt I could be arsed with this myself but it is certainly not useless, good luck with the bet

[TransientR]

I would suggest instead of rote memorization using techniques like those outlined by Charles Van Doren/Mortimer Adler in "How to Read a Book." You and your friend could make a detailed outline of the book and quiz each other on your grasp of the concepts explored. Create hypotheticals to see if you can apply what you have read, etc.

Not that memorization is wrong, but this seems to be a more active approach, avoiding the pitfalls of memorization (losing the forest in the trees).

Frank