Hellmuth Book "Controversy"?

[bernie]

1 point is because he was not the sole support of his own career. he did not make the money using all his own. he's had backers that helped out when he'd have been long gone. where would he be without them? he was nearly broke a year or so ago. good thing his wife makes good coin, from what i read. hell, if someone backed me when i was down so i could still go into tourneys, that's a nice additive. there's also alot of luck in tournies. ALOT of luck. many tourney players suck at a ring game. just as many ringgamers dont do well in tournies.

but to say that just because who he is and what he's accomplished on the surface should be justification enough, and that no one, unless theyve personally beat him, should criticize his theories...is wrong.

his theories have been proven why they dont work. especially in a ring game. which, btw, word is, he's a big donator. if he cant run over a game, he cant handle it. i dont see him having a grinder mentality for that type of holdem.

i will give him credit for a great feel of the game and a great hand reader. but other than that...

play his way in a ring game at you're own risk.

b

[LetsRock]

I've read Phil's book.

I don't suscribe to his tactics, but I do believe that if one were to stumble upon the "perfect" table, his unusual method would do well. I can't imagine a scenario that I would be in position to implement his methods, but I can envision that he could be.

I don't know anything of his play; I know that he is considered a formidable tourney player and is also considered (at least by many on this forum) an "awful" LL Limit player. These two formats have completely different styles and I could see where his more aggressive style would be more effective in tourney play.

Although I wouldn't suggest that anyone use his book as a how-to, I would highly reccommend it as a good read that will give you a clue what his followers are up to. You'll recognize them in about 5 hands and you'll know where they learned from. It's always good to understand where your opponent is coming from.

If you want to throw the table off, play a few orbits at a new table in his style and you won't have any trouble getting action on your AA raises later on.

[pudley4]

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I think we can both agree that his career (at least since his WSOP win some 14 years ago) is a long enough sample from which to draw conclusions concerning the long term implications of the way he plays.

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His success has come in tournaments (mostly no-limit). His advice is for limit ring-games.

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It's NOT like the maniac winning the first few hands upon first sitting down to the table and then declaring: "I'm great! Mine is the best strategy!"

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No, it's like the maniac winning the local no-limit tourney, then trying to run over the 3/6 game by playing the same way.

[Still the Spank E]

If this is so (his sucking in cash games), and EVERYONE says that it is, then you (and pudley4) are, of course, quite right. I didn't know this about his being almost bust last year. Interesting. Thanks for the info.

[SheridanCat]

This has been mentioned, but could stand repeating. Phil Hellmuth is a respected and successful no-limit holdem tournament player. The advice that is most controversial in his book is for limit holdem. There is a vast difference between limit holdem ring games and no-limit tournament games. I think this may be a distinction you're not fully understanding.

The style of limit play advocated in "Play Poker Like The Pros" is highly aggressive and loose. This is a recipe for trouble for an experienced player, but it spells disaster for the target audience for this book.

"So," you may be asking, "if Phil is just priming players to come to the tables and play badly against us, that's a good thing."

The problem is, people who play as suggested in this book will lose all of their money fast. People who lose all their money fast may decide they're not cut out for the game and we lose that player.

Anyhow, that's my problem with the book. I think there is okay advice to be found in other parts of the book, but not the limit holdem parts.

Regards,

T

[crockpot]

though i have seen hellmuth play like an idiot on UB many times, i'm convinced it's just because he wants to generate attention and the money means nothing to him. (also, his play is more suited to tournaments than ring games.)

i think the real problem is that he wants to teach poker to people who aren't willing to study hard to get better. and to be fair, if i took two people who sucked at hold 'em, gave them HFAP and play poker like the pros and a half hour each to read them, the hellmuth reader would play better at the end of the half hour.

of course, people who do well at poker don't learn it in a half hour. but impatient people who think they're getting better through an easy read make up a large market, so hellmuth's book rockets to the bestseller's list of poker tomes.

[TimTimSalabim]

I would certainly agree that much of the advice in the limit holdem section is questionable, however, I found it did one important thing, which is cause me to examine my own game and see where I was being too conservative and predictable. I also like using the animal names as a shortcut for making quick notes on players when I'm playing online. Overall, I think that his advice works better in a game where there are lots of "jackals" and very few "elephants", which is probably the case in certain higher-limit games that he's used to playing in.

Book aside, I don't see how anyone can argue that he's less than a world-class tournament player.

[bernie]

most of those top tourney players have backers and are not self supported. nolan dalla(?) wrote a great article about it. im not sure if it was on pokerpages or in cardplayer. but someone should be able to provide a link to it. others have also written about this subject in various articles.

b

[Still the Spank E]

I saw the Nolan Dalla article I think you're referring to. It was pretty depressing.

[TimTimSalabim]

In order to have backers year in and year out, they must be winning tournament players. Neither backer or player is going to continue doing what they're doing if they don't profit from it.