[mchilger]

With well over 200 hand examples in my book, I am not surprised that some of the hand examples in my book will be similar to examples from other poker books. Any similarities are purely coincidental. All of the examples in my book were taken from actual hands I played on the Internet or from hand histories from friends. PokerStat was invaluable in giving me a large database where I literally went through thousands of hand histories to choose hands which demonstrated particular concepts.

It just so happens in this particular case that play between the button and blinds leads to a perfect example for showing when to induce a bluff or call. Each player is playing with relatively little information since both players could be playing a wide variety of hands. This leads to a scenario where you are way ahead or way behind when holding a pair of aces with a weak kicker. I suspect this is why both Mason and I chose similar hand examples to explain a common concept.

Everything written in my book is simply a combination of all the knowledge I have gained through poker books, Forums, magazines, discussions with buddies, and most importantly live experience. Pinpointing where that knowledge came from is not an easy chore since it is really a combination of so many things.

Having said this, THFAP and TOP were the first two poker books I read and therefore were the first to introduce to me in text form many of the common poker concepts. Having read THFAP so many times when starting out, I am sure that this has played a significant role in my development as a poker player and subsequently my writing (this is not the case with Middle Limit which I have only read once but was pleased to finally read a poker book with lots of hand examples).

As a result, it was and is my intention to give them all proper credit for their influence on me as a poker writer. All three of these are recommended in the back of the book including a brief synopsis of each of them. I only mention four books in my recommendations so I felt this was a strong endorsement and gave credit to those particular authors (Lee Jones is the other and although I read it after I completed the text of ITH I felt it was worthwhile as a mention).

It seems that Mason would prefer direct references in the text for certain parts of the book. I have been considering eliminating the book recommendations anyhow for the 2nd edition planned for next year as I don’t want to have to constantly update the text in coming years. Direct references within the text would be a logical step in doing so. For example, I thank Ciaffone a lot for encouraging authors to include lots of hand examples which has been a big selling point of my book. If similarities do exist between the text in my books and other poker books, it is just the result of me being familiar with their books after multiple readings rather than any intentional effort to copy their work. In any case, I am open to referencing other books if they refer to concepts which are truly unique in the poker literature.

I will say that I think there is a fine line when considering references to works when it deals with common knowledge. Hold’em is not rocket science. If this was the case then every book would be filled with references to the first book explaining the concept of position, for example.

Best regards, Matthew