Coach Reviews in Strategy Forums

[jdl22]

[ QUOTE ]
Q,

I personally would be interested in Flair's review though I certainly agree that it would need a disclaimer re: Ciaffone's LHE advice.

Flair's a great contributor to the forum and I think his comments on the value of coaching in general would be a valuable contribution to the forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you explain why you think it needs a disclaimer when this thread doesn't. While that isn't about Ciaffone, no posts in this thread have the disclaimer. Mason's reponse to Bobbyi makes it pretty clear that his post does not give the official 2+2 view.

Furthermore is this post giving the official strategy of 2+2 publishing for how to play AQs when the flop is A48r, turn is J completing rainbow, river is T, one opponent is a total lag and the other is a tag that drops out after the flop gets raised? It doesn't have a disclaimer and the idiot making the post is even a mod.

I have no clue why this post, or any other, should get a disclaimer. The situation is extremely similar to reviews of books in the book forum. Those never have had a disclaimer as far as I know. Strategy posts don't have a disclaimer. Articles published in the magazine have no such discliamer. Putting it into just this one post makes no sense.

If it is necesary for this post please explain why it isn't necesary in the examples cited above.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi JaredL:

The reason I feel it needs a disclaimer is that Ciaffone isn't just a typical person. He comes under our policy of holding authors to a higher standard. So I feel the review can be posted but we do need a polite disclaimer.

Best wishes,
Mason

[jdl22]

Mason,

I agree with your position that authors should be held to a higher standard. That's fair enough, I just wonder what people will think when the post has a disclaimer attached, and others such as the examples I've given above don't. While there could be legal ramifications I'm not aware of, I don't see why a poster reading a review of a book or a coach would misconstrue it as your company supporting this person (or being against in the case of a bad review). People reading the review will get to the disclaimer and wonder why it's there. My guess is that the thread would then either get fully derailed or at least split into some sort of two threaded monster with one discussing the actual value of Ciaffone's coaching/coaching in general and the other discussing why the disclaimer's there and whether you treat "your competition" unfairly. If this were to happen we would have a thread go from being hugely beneficial to simply making everyone frustrated. In this scenario it's also not likely that you would come out looking like the good guy, despite being well intentioned.

Based on little I know of Ciaffone's limit advice I agree with your position. I haven't read his books but from hearing and reading about various examples of hands where his advice is clearly too weak-tight your view seems to be correct. While I can see why you would want a disclaimer, for the reasons mentioned above I think it would be best if it were left out and you responded to the post saying that you think his limit advice is often bad but his NL and legal advice is good. (on a sidenote, his discussion of rules seems interesting as well I'm curious what you think on that) That would get your view out there, make it very clear that the review isn't giving the official 2+2 publishing opinion, and would be much less likely (though still not probability zero) to end in a flame war. Hopefully, no matter your decision such a problem doesn't develop.

By the way, after all of this disclaimer discussion I skimmed the pages of the magazine looking for such a disclaimer and didn't find one. Shouldn't there be one? I'm being 100% serious here, this is in no way a continuation of the argument above. I would assume that the magazine is something like the editorial page of the newspaper where you accept and publish writings even if you disagree with the view given therein, assuming they are well thought out and written reasonably. Most (all?) newspapers have a similar disclaimer, and this would seem necesary in your case as well, especially since there usually are 1 or 2 controversial articles every month.

Your humble servant,

Jared

[Greg J]

Lloyd, I just don't get this:

[ QUOTE ]
My guess is that the thread would then either get fully derailed or at least split into some sort of two threaded monster with one discussing the actual value of Ciaffone's coaching/coaching in general and the other discussing why the disclaimer's there and whether you treat "your competition" unfairly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't see why you think this would happen.

At worst a disclaimer makes the review a little redundant.

[Lloyd]

[ QUOTE ]
Lloyd, I just don't get this:

[ QUOTE ]
My guess is that the thread would then either get fully derailed or at least split into some sort of two threaded monster with one discussing the actual value of Ciaffone's coaching/coaching in general and the other discussing why the disclaimer's there and whether you treat "your competition" unfairly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't see why you think this would happen.

At worst a disclaimer makes the review a little redundant.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're quoting the wrong guy.

[Greg J]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lloyd, I just don't get this:

[ QUOTE ]
My guess is that the thread would then either get fully derailed or at least split into some sort of two threaded monster with one discussing the actual value of Ciaffone's coaching/coaching in general and the other discussing why the disclaimer's there and whether you treat "your competition" unfairly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't see why you think this would happen.

At worst a disclaimer makes the review a little redundant.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're quoting the wrong guy.

[/ QUOTE ]
Oops! My bad. Sorry. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[jdl22]

[ QUOTE ]
Lloyd, I just don't get this:

[ QUOTE ]
My guess is that the thread would then either get fully derailed or at least split into some sort of two threaded monster with one discussing the actual value of Ciaffone's coaching/coaching in general and the other discussing why the disclaimer's there and whether you treat "your competition" unfairly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't see why you think this would happen.

At worst a disclaimer makes the review a little redundant.

[/ QUOTE ]

People tend to notice odd things in posts. I would be surprised to find no discussion of why it's there, in particular if it was put there by a mod and not the OP. As for the discussion of Mason and Sklansky treating other authors unfairly, that's flaired up on a few occasions primarily in Books (well then it was books/software) when one of the two names above give negative reviews of non-2+2 books. The Lee Jones thread comes to mind.

I personally think that being very critical of authors in general is a good thing. As an example, given Mason's positive review of Kill Phil (even if it changes near the end) I plan to pick it up. If he was like many in the publishing industry, I'm thinking of many player/authors here, his positive review would be worthless due to good reviews of books I know to be bad. Similarly, as someone who's first two books were Ken Warren's Winning player teaches hold'em (or whatever it is) and Phil Helmuth's book, I'm certainly behind the effort to not lead people to bad advice. Unfortunately, others don't see it this way and things could head that direction.

Jared