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If Slotboom had stated that we have an explanation why tells are not very important in the games for which the book is targeted for and that he disagrees for the following reasons and so on, then I would have no problem
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For whatever reason I do not think this is the case. First of all, this passage you refer to that seems to warrant all these big words of yours ("You need to reread", "You did read that before doing the review, did you", "He is completely wrong", "You finally got something right"), does not by any means suddenly turn these few little comments of mine into "wrong". (Words that are actually no big deal, nor does the actual writer think they are - so why are
you suddenly making such a big fuzz about it). Second, if it's your view that tells are just not important, you should have said so in the book, instead of the correct-but-obvious "it is very dangerous to rely on tells in big multiway pots". If that were the case (i.e. tells in small-stakes hold'em have no value whatsoever) then there would also have been no need to refer to *other* book on tells. You could simply have written: don't bother to read on tells - they are useless in small-stakes hold'em. But as you didn't write that, you probably don't think that - so why are you coming up with that now?
Anyway, as other posters have already pointed out, there are many instances when tells *are* important, especially at the early stages of the hand - maybe not always crucial, but helpful and +EV nonetheless. In my book, pots don't get big all by themselves, and if you say that a good player should *not* take tells into account for instance with his hand selection or on the flop, then I guess you are saying: no need to use every possible edge that is available. And if you are saying that indeed at some stages in the hand they *could* be important in the decision-making process, then we are back at my little claim, that if small-stakes games are indeed rife with tells, you should probably have analyzed it more than you did now.
That's it for now; I leave it up to others to continue this discussion - if that's what they want. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]
Rolf Slotboom
www.rolfslotboom.com