Ed Miller's book "versus" WLLH

[Ed Miller]

Im not sure I understood this part. Why would it be more acceptable to check AA here? Is it because your opponents are more likely to fold to a bet and there is less chance to get outdrawn with the uncooridinated board so you are hoping to get a few double bets on the turn and river?

There are two reasons you should be more willing to check this board (remember, we are discussing what to do on the TURN after betting the flop and getting one or two callers).

1. The callers are more likely to have an eight. When the board is T88, two-flush, TONS of hands without an eight can find a call. Not so much on 882, rainbow. Sure, loose players can (and do) call with anything, but any individual call on the rainbow board is more likely to be an eight. Also, I think on average your opponents will slowplay you slightly more often on the 882 rainbow board, further increasing the chance that a check-call is an eight. I don't want to inflate this... the chance someone has an eight isn't MUCH higher... just somewhat higher.

2. You are "way ahead or way behind." Lots of people misuse that phrase, but this is where it applies. If no one has an eight, then any of your opponents probably has no more than two outs, and callers with hands like KQ are drawing dead. But if someone does have an eight, obviously you are "way behind." When you likely have the field drawing to four outs or fewer, it is not SO important to protect your hand, even when the pot is somewhat large. Your opponents simply won't draw out very often.

Having said that, I would usually bet in a loose game. Because, while it is no catastrophe to give two people each drawing dead or to two outs a free card, often these guys will CALL you drawing dead or to two outs. If your opponents will call with KQ, drawing stone dead, then please bet. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Ed Miller]

"if you get called" should not be translated to "one caller checks to you on the turn so you check behind and if he checks, check the river again".

Why shouldn't it be translated that way? If Lee meant, "If six people call you," then he should have said that! "If you get called," means, "If one or more people call you." Now as experienced poker players, you and I know that checking the hand down because one guy called you is silly. But Lee's audience is BEGINNERS. Many of them know NOTHING. When you give them advice, you must be precise.

Also, I believe this is an area that Lee fixed between editions. In the first edition, IIRC, he tells you, "if you get called," to check behind on the turn, and then if they check to you again on the river, to check that too. That advice is ridiculous. If you did check your hand on the turn, and everyone checked to you on the river, failing to bet for value is simply dreadful.

Again, I think this is something Lee fixed between editions. I have neither book in front of me, though, so I'm working from memory.

The important point of this section for new players is to take note of the different situation with two pair when one is on board. I have seen many new players constantly describe their hand as "2 pair" and not appreciating the community nature of their hand. This community nature is actually a fundemental reason why players play bad in holdem.

This is an important feature, but I guarantee you that one could sufficiently draw attention to it without giving incorrect advice in the process.

[eh923]

I hope you're kidding. A heads up match doesn't exactly settle whose ideas are more profitable in a ring game full of loose players.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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I hope you're kidding. A heads up match doesn't exactly settle whose ideas are more profitable in a ring game full of loose players.

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Revise the challenge to be some sort of competition to see who can win the most either in a certain period of time or a certain number of hands/sessions at 2/4 either online or B&M.

[David Sklansky]

"Here's my point: let's say we're going to argue about the blades of grass on a football field, even if we're unwilling to count them all, and choose instead to use Ed's idea of counting the blades in a square foot of turf and then multiply. Fine. That should indeed tell you whether one million or ten million is a better number.

There's only way analogous way I could see to show with near-certainty that my statements are "wrong". You'd have to mine a database of a few zillion hands actually played, and see whether (for instance) it's better to bet or check the turn with QQ when the flop comes T-8-8 and you get called in one or two places.

Look, when anybody starts discussing how blackjack basic strategy is flawed or wrong or whatever, we all laugh. Because we know it's simple enough to Monte Carlo the hell out of it (and the Peter Griffins of the world can actually compute it) and figure out the Right Answer.

Until you do that with poker, isn't it presumptuous to say you know what is "right" and "wrong"?"

The above statement is simply incorrect. There are many things that can be said about a poker hand that are demonstrably incorrect or at least inconsistent with other statements besides the odds of making a hand. For instance you cannot simultaneously advise a player to check in a particular situation where he is likely to have the best hand because he won't be called unless he is beaten, while also not recommending that he bluff if he has nothing in that situation.

Because logic and the application of Baye's Theorem can often lead you to the almost undisputably correct play. And because Ed Miller is not going to suggest Lee Jones is wrong unless he is convinced of that, there is no reason to believe that you couldn't lay 100-1 on Ed vs Lee regarding any poker play dispute Ed feels sure about. We are talking about an MIT graduate vs someoneone who once wrote that you shouldn't change your play regardless of the size of a jackpot.

[MEbenhoe]

What does being an MIT graduate have to do with being able to play or write about poker, other than the fact that you obviously know the math part of it well?

[J.A.Sucker]

David,

Please don't hold Ed's education against him.

[David Sklansky]

Those who think that an MIT graduate would not be much more likely to correctly analyze the profitabiliy of poker plays, (if they put their mind to such a task), than members of the general population, are engaging in wishfull thinking. I am not talking simply math here either.

[Nottom]

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Im not sure I understood this part. Why would it be more acceptable to check AA here? Is it because your opponents are more likely to fold to a bet and there is less chance to get outdrawn with the uncooridinated board so you are hoping to get a few double bets on the turn and river?

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With QQ not only do you have to worry about the posibility of an 8 but you have to worry about giving a free card to a player with a K or A (cards which loose players like to call the flop with). With AA you don't have that problem.

[Jim Easton]

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This *can't* be a Family Guy reference, can it?


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No, Peter Griffin wrote The Theory of Blackjack .