My book: "Professional Poker"

[Malachii]

Mark, speaking for myself, you don't come off as a particularly classy guy. You sound like a semi shrewd businessman trying to promote a subpar product by kissing ass.

On a side note, I have no idea why people are flaming Mason. Sure, he took a lame joke out of context to make a point, but let's not forget that Mark's book is from a rival publisher and that he's using 2+2 resources to promote his book without asking permission. Mason has every right to be pissed and every right to be jumping all over this book if it's of poor quality.

[oreogod]

Hey mark, thanks for getting back to that about Ciaffone's book. Very nice response and very true about the black and white aspect. Also see you got some "intresting" responses.

One other question, Im always curious about this with any player...how long into the game did it take you to be come a winner?

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Malachii:

Based on what I've read, I don't think the book is of poor quality. It's okay. Perhaps when I read the rest my opinion will change.

These forums have become a major driver in the sales of poker books. This includes those by other authors as well as our own. In addition, it's also our policy at Two Plus Two to steer our readers towards good products no matter who the author and who the publisher, and away from bad ones. It's part of our formula for success.

Thus, I feel it's important that this site be used wisely and properly. For instance, there are many authors who if they came on here as Blade did, we would quickly delete their post because we feel that their offering is way below our standards.

If Blade would have asked permission, we would have told him to hold off until I finished reading his book (which due to other committments will probably be in about a month) since based on what I've read it appears to me to be on the borderline in terms of deserving this type of promotion. But since he did post the decision was to let his post stand with my initial response.

However, things began to change when Blade defended the C&B book with an argument that shows dramatically flawed thinking. If I would have read something like that in his book, and I haven't, this thread would have been taken down immediately. (By the way, my posts here in no way addresses the C&B book. I have already done that in a seperate review.)

To those of you who have been critical of my responses, keep in mind that we make the best decisions we can with the information that we have available. We take this site very seriously, as we do all of Two Plus Two Publishing LLC and make top notch quality of information our main focus. We also don't pull any punches.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Mark:

[ QUOTE ]
clearly he thinks very highly of you and david and your books and wanted to show his gratitude by plugging the 2+2 name, whether or not you think its needed.


[/ QUOTE ]

You may be absolutely correct, but there is also another reason. To have credibility yourself, especially when you are rewriting many things that have already been written before, you need to reference your sources.

Let me give you an example, {i]Card Player[/i] recently had a poll on their site where you could vote for the best poker book. None of our books were listed and many posters here pointed that out.

My guess is, and I am only guessing, is that we are both right in that both of these reasons are why our books got mentioned.

Best wishes,
mason

[YoureToast]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Malachii:

Based on what I've read, I don't think the book is of poor quality. It's okay. Perhaps when I read the rest my opinion will change.

These forums have become a major driver in the sales of poker books. This includes those by other authors as well as our own. In addition, it's also our policy at Two Plus Two to steer our readers towards good products no matter who the author and who the publisher, and away from bad ones. It's part of our formula for success.

Thus, I feel it's important that this site be used wisely and properly. For instance, there are many authors who if they came on here as Blade did, we would quickly delete their post because we feel that their offering is way below our standards.

If Blade would have asked permission, we would have told him to hold off until I finished reading his book (which due to other committments will probably be in about a month) since based on what I've read it appears to me to be on the borderline in terms of deserving this type of promotion. But since he did post the decision was to let his post stand with my initial response.

However, things began to change when Blade defended the C&B book with an argument that shows dramatically flawed thinking. If I would have read something like that in his book, and I haven't, this thread would have been taken down immediately. (By the way, my posts here in no way addresses the C&B book. I have already done that in a seperate review.)

To those of you who have been critical of my responses, keep in mind that we make the best decisions we can with the information that we have available. We take this site very seriously, as we do all of Two Plus Two Publishing LLC and make top notch quality of information our main focus. We also don't pull any punches.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

The only comment I have to this is that I, as one of your customers, thinks that your willingness to delete a post because "you" think the book is crap is misguided. I agree that this board should not be used by "spammers" to advertise their products, but I, as a poker enthusiast and an avid reader of poker literature, want to be notified when someone has published a new book on a relevant topic. I don't think your judgment on its quality should be able to impair this ability - for its one of the reasons I frequent this particular forum. By the same token, I understand and agree with your right to delete posts that are clearly using your website to advertise their products, provided these attempts are obvious spam type posts. If you had deleted Mark's original post, as you suggest you would have, its likely no one here would have bought his book for quite a while and thus no reviews would be posted -- this would be a disservice to the this community, and me personally. When I write my book, I will certainly ask for permission to post that it exists here on the board, but I would also hope that your personal dislike of it (or me) would not render my one-time notification deletable material.

[Mark Blade]

Hi Mason,

You are free to discount what I am about to write for any reason you choose, but all I can tell you is that it is the absolute truth as I know it.

I wrote that quoted reference to your publishing company for two reasons and two reasons only:

1) In writing a book that attempts to teach people how to make money at poker, I felt the need to guide my readers toward other books that would be quite helpful in this pursuit.
2) As a successful professional poker player myself, I wanted to pay tribute to a publishing company whose books had greatly benefited me in the past. Nothing more and nothing less.

Do you want to know something funny? When I wrote that line, I thought I was paying one of the highest compliments one could ever pay. For one book to basically give an unsolicited plug to another publishing company’s entire line of books, even the ones that have not even been written yet, I thought, was one of the rarest of tributes in the history of publishing. Now, I realize that you are going to see potential ulterior motives at every turn here. But what can I do about that? Do you want to know something even funnier? As an afterthought, I did speculate on the possibility of one result coming from this. I thought I might hear from you sometime after the book was published, thanking me for such a nice free plug and for shining the spotlight (more free plugs) on many of your company’s landmark books throughout my text. Boy, was I ever wet behind the ears regarding the competitiveness of the poker book business.

Now I find myself painted into one of the most peculiar of corners. For any subsequent printing of my book, should I leave this quote in, feeling quite confident that almost every reader will take it for the compliment/free plug/acknowledgment/tribute that it was intended to be? Or should I pull it because the recipient of the compliment has taken offense from it and accused me of having ulterior motives for including it in the first place? (I must be in a Twilight Zone episode, right now. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img])

But then I thought a little more about it. I don’t have to make that decision. I’ll let the owner of Two Plus Two Publishing make it for me. So if I don’t hear any reply from you on this, I’ll leave it as is. If you ask me to pull it from any subsequent printing, I’ll be more than happy to do so.

If after what I have just written, you still guess that it was included (at least in part) for ulterior motives, I think it’s perfectly sensible for you to let it stand anyway as that motive you are seeing seems to be lost on the vast majority of readers.

By the way, I think it’s very interesting what you mentioned about Card Player. I can see almost no reasonable reason why certain Two Plus Two books would be left off a poll like that. How you can compare what I’ve referenced in my book to what they did or didn't include on their list, well, maybe I’m just too close to the source to really know how my quote reads to someone who isn’t inside my head.

Mason, I still look forward to a cordial and respectful relationship with you in the future. I hope you feel likewise.

Kindest regards,
Mark Blade

[Shandrax]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For example, if Ciaffone and Brier are so skillful at recognizing which players are observant about this fact, and if C & B also have tremendous skills at recognizing when these observant players use their newfound knowledge in the future to try to run over them, and if C & B are great at picking up tells, and therefore adapt by snapping off bluffs that are attempted against them that wouldn’t have otherwise been attempted were it not for their marginal over-folding, then this marginal over-folding could turn out to be a long-term expectation positive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope everyone reads this statement. It's totally ridiculous. No ne has this type of skill and ability, and if someone was to claim they did, they would not be very truthful.

I have heard this sort of argument for years about players who have developed these extraneous skills to incredible high degree but have never seen one in action. Also, what if you're playing on the Internet?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmmm, I remember that quote above from somewhere. Good to have photographic memory [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

HPFAP says on p. 235:
[ QUOTE ]
In general you should evaluate any play you make on its merits alone, that is, on its expectation in a given situation. However, you occasionally might want to do something that is theoretically incorrect to create an impression for the future. Once you have your opponents thinking one way, you can take advantage of that thinking later.
Finally, keep in mind that these types of plays will work against players who are good enough to try to take advantage of their new-found knowledge, but who are not good enough to realize that you know this, and that they should therefore ignore it.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I did not completely fail at reading&comprehension then both quotes are rather similar, so I thought it would only be fair to mention it. That doesn't mean that I am supporting the advertisement campaign on this thread.

Btw, I am enjoying to read this discussion so far, because in Europe we can hardly find such an open conflict on a message boards. They are all way to nice to each other over here.

[wuwei]

[ QUOTE ]

By the way, I think it’s very interesting what you mentioned about Card Player. I can see almost no reasonable reason why certain Two Plus Two books would be left off a poll like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

The reason can be found here.


[ QUOTE ]
How you can compare what I’ve referenced in my book to what they did or didn't include on their list, well, maybe I’m just too close to the source to really know how my quote reads to someone who isn’t inside my head.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nah, I don't see the connection either.

[gila]

One can make a connection between anything, so long as there is distance between.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Shandrax:

They're not similar. It's true that you can do some stuff, but you can't come close to doing everything that Balde argued for.

Best wishes,
Mason