Question for Miller/Sklansky/Malmuth re: SSHE and Wilson's Turbo

[belowpoverty]

Just received SSHE and am only to pg 32, but I've already learned one thing from it which more than justifies the cost:
On page 17 the way you explain why we need to learn to always follow the course of action with the highest positive expected value despite intuitive preferences and short-term indications to the contrary, and the explanation of how this differs from how we normally learn from positive feedback was a breakthrough for me and helped eliminate confusion.

Reaffirming this concept and having experienced a losing streak, I decided to go back to my Wilson TurboTHE training program and just practice on it until I can pretty much always predict what their advice is going to tell me to do.

Supposedly their advice is generated by running a bazillion hands through the computer and should USUALLY produce the highest +EV, even though it is highly counter-intuitive at times.

Then I did some reading on here and there seems to be a concensus that Wilson"s advice is dubious at best.

Like most people, I can learn much MUCH faster and easier from computerized repetition than from a book. If the concepts in SSHE were incorporated into Wilson's Turbo, you'd hae a gold mine for sure!!

So my question is: During the years it's going to take me to study and learn to practice the concepts in SSHE, should I also be absorbing the Wilson advice/strategy? Put another way, what do you experts think of Wilson's "Automatic Advisor"'s advice?

I read on another string that Mason felt that Acespade's advice is better than Wilson's. Frankly I never heard of Acespade until this morning. Would you recommend my purchasing it when I already own Wilson???

Thanks very much if one of you takes the time to address these questions...

[razor]

I'd recommend you throw $50 into an online site that offers 0.05/0.10 games (Paradise, Pacific and Stars are 3 that I'm aware of).

I used Wilson's TTH when I was learning (after reading Sklansky's TOP and HE). I didn't pay any attention to the advice because others told me it sucked but that was about 6 years ago. There was no online poker (as far as I know) at the time I started learning to play and I think reading and playing several thousand hands on TTH were beneficial before started to play live. Once I started playing live I didn't touch TTH again.

Now that several big online sites have Nickel and Dime games, I think one is much better off reading a few books, putting $50 into an account and logging some time with online games. With the books, cheap games and the 2+2 forums, anyone who puts the effort in should do fine.

[colgin]

Hi. I know you asked for a response from either David, Mason or Ed and I am clearly not one of them. Still, I have read SSH, own Wilson and have been playing $3/6 successfully for some time now. So, FWIW:

[ QUOTE ]
During the years it's going to take me to study and learn to practice the concepts in SSHE, should I also be absorbing the Wilson advice/strategy?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. I have written favorably about Wilson's Turbo in the past although I never use it anymore. However, the advisor's advice is dubious at best in many regards. Play aginst it if you want to get free experience playing hands. However, don't rely on their advice. Try to incorporate the SSH concepts into your game. Someone correct me if I am wrong here but I believe that Wilson's advice is totally based on your hand, the texture of the board and how many bets it is to you. It ignores completely the size of the pot which is, of course, a fundamental problem with its analysis and will result in much wrong advice (particularly folding too much). It is also bad at interpreting what the action of other players "mean", e.g., it will often tell you to call when it is quite obvious you are beat.

Anyway, I hope this helps until the authors themselves have a chance to respond to your post.

Good luck.

Colgin

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi belowp:

David and I have reviewed TTH on these forums before. We consider it to be a very poor product when it comes to how it plays and the advice it gives. So my advice would be to not use it for this purpose.

While I feel that Ace-Spades is a better product than Wilson, it still needs some work to get my recommendation.

Best wishes,
Mason

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
While I feel that Ace-Spades is a better product than Wilson, it still needs some work to get my recommendation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason,

What features does it lack to get your recommendation? Is it just the quality of its advice/simulated play, or are there other features missing?

I'm just curious as I'm considering buying one or the other. On RGP everyone seems to prefer Wilson but that may be for other reasons besides the quality of the product.

[razor]

What are you hoping to gain from using TTH or some other software?

[AKQJ10]

I'm mostly interested in the ability to run simulations in seeing how different types of hands or different rules sets play over the long run against different kinds of opponents. In that sense it's more of a toy than a training tool, although it would be some of both. For practice i'm mostly playing micro-limit tables as suggested above; the software is more to run simulations over large numbers of hands without having to alter my "real life" playing style.

Also i'm interested in more than just Hold 'Em, so the fact that AceSpade offers their suite for less than the individual programs is of interest to me.

[belowpoverty]

many thanks to Mason and all the other contributors to this thread--this question is finlly laid to rest!!!!

[DPCondit]

You can't program simulations with Acespades.