Slotboom on SSHE

[Rolf Slotboom]

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But the lowest rating I see is a 4.5 (and there's only one of those), and the highest rating is an 8.5

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Actually, the lowest rating is a 3 (the book by Mort Badiza-degan), and the highest rating a 9 (Sklansky's The Theory of Poker). One other book has a 4: the 2+2 work that you have defended all along, the truly excellent book by Sylvester Suzuki. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] I have not included this one in the listings right now though, as I heard somewhere that there may be a reprint out with some things improved, and I thought it was inappropriate to have a horrible rating for a book when it has already been improved considerably.

As to the rest of your comments: I'll let others elaborate. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Rolf Slotboom
www.rolfslotboom.com

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Rolf:

Just to have a little fun, let's do a little comparison.

Championship Hold 'em by Cloutier and McEvoy: Your rating is 6.5. My rating was a 1 for the first edition and a 3 for the second edition.

No Fold'em Hold'em by D.H. Shear: Your rating is a 6, mine is a 3.

Play Poker Like the Pros by Phil Hellmuth: Your rating is a 6. I gave the limit hold 'em a 1, and the rest of the book a 6.

The Secret to Winning Big in Tournament Poker by Ken Buntjer: You gave it a 7.5. My rating is a 1. (By the way, for further comparison you gave Harrington on Hold 'em: Volume I an 8. So you'll saying that the Buntjer book is almost as good as this one.)

Winner's Guide to Texas Hold 'em Poker by Ken Warren. You gave it a 7 and I gave it a 2.

As for the Suzuki book, I gave it a 6. Why don't you try to pick it apart. I'll bet you can't find one error in it. The main complaint some people have is that it repeats itself in places.

MM

[B 1329 O]

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Would you like a hug instead?

[/ QUOTE ]A hug and a beer would be great.

[B 1329 O]

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Ah yes, I see exactly what you mean.

I own a roulette table in a casino, and eventhough I do have a mathematical edge of 3% I cannot win because there are so many players, someone always gets lucky

I am truly doomed

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Well not a very informative post if you ask me. It was not very helpfull at all. As we all know roulette is played against the house and not the other players as poker is.

If you draw your sword of scarcasm again please hone the edge and practice untill you are able to do damage. Other wise keep it safely sheathed or someone might take it away from you.

[Rudbaeck]

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Ah yes, I see exactly what you mean.

I own a roulette table in a casino, and eventhough I do have a mathematical edge of 3% I cannot win because there are so many players, someone always gets lucky

I am truly doomed

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Well not a very informative post if you ask me. It was not very helpfull at all. As we all know roulette is played against the house and not the other players as poker is.

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What difference does it make? This is exactly the kind of overlay the skilled poker player has.

[OrangeKing]

B 1239 O -

You made a statement in your original post that showed just how little of Ed's book you actually understand. Let me reference it for you:

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Holdem Hi: 820 enumerated boards containing Qc 8c 2h
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
4h 3h 48 5.85 772 94.15 0 0.00 0.059
4s 5h 23 2.80 797 97.20 0 0.00 0.028
9c 8d 397 48.41 423 51.59 0 0.00 0.484
3c 2c 352 42.93 468 57.07 0 0.00 0.429
Still beat by middle pair! Not till you include all clubs in the deck (9 remaining) do you see this power hand 2c3c win more than it looses. Why anyone would play cheese like this unless you want to advertise, but what would you be advertizing? that you are stupid? Multi way pots! I think players can be beat, hands beat, but multiway pots are not beatable with cheese. Multi way pots beat premium hands too.



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You have just quoted a 4 way hand in which your hand - 3c 2c - has a 42.9% chance of winning. Do you honestly not see how this hand "beats" the multiway pot for a profit? Let's pretend that we're starting the hand from this point, and everyone has to put in one bet to see the rest of the cards - you put in 1 bet, as do the other three players. You win 42.9% of the time, and lose 57.1% of the time.

so, 57.1% of the time, you lose 1 bet.
And 42.9% of the time, you win 3 bets.

Your average for the hand is...a profit of .716 bets! But how is this possible? As you pointed out, you lose more often then you win.

The secret is in your pot equity against the field. You are playing this game against 3 other people, and as long as you all stay in the hand, you are each contributing 25% of the money in the pot. Thus, to make money, you don't have to win a majority of the pots; you just have to win more than 25% of the time.

In fact, your situation is even better than the simplified version of the game I presented above. You have even more things working to your advantage, including:

- Any money contributed by the blinds or other players no longer in the hand;

- The implied odds you're receiving: you'll make a lot more money from worse hands when you make your hand, but you'll never call a bet when you fail to improve;

- The fact that in that first 5 handed scenario you created, the hands you selected really are pretty bad for the hand you're holding , as you've put in hands that are going to take out many of your outs. In a real scenario, you're likely to see hands more like 98, A2, 55 and so on - things that are barely getting a piece of the board, if at all (you'll often see something like ATo calling down here too, in low limit games).

This explanation leaves a lot to be desired, and isn't perfectly correct - but I tried to keep things simple in the hopes that you'd see where you've gone wrong. You obviously want to be a winning player, but it seems like you're failing to grasp the basic concepts necessary to win at poker. Reread SSHE, try to understand why you don't need to win a majority of multiway pots for your hands to make you money, and then go back out and kill those microlimit games.

[bygmesterf]

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Hi Rolf:

Just to have a little fun, let's do a little comparison.

Championship Hold 'em by Cloutier and McEvoy: Your rating is 6.5. My rating was a 1 for the first edition and a 3 for the second edition.

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Maybe he likes the book more than you do.

Mason, has it occurred to you that Rolf's ratings are a hedonic scale based on how much he likes the books.Perhaps Rolf's hedonic function is not comparable to yours. That hardly merits any criticism.

It's extremely narcissistic to criticize other people for not liking/disliking the same things that you do. That's like a kindergartner saying that another kid is stupid because the other kid does not hate girls as much as he does. Or one wine snob saying that another oenophile is idiot because he doesn't appreciate a like wine as much as he does.

For someone with your background in survey research, I'm also a bit surprised that you would immediately asssume that other people are using a comperable rating scale, anchoring points, or criteria as you do. And that you would even be surprised or annoyed that other people might not share your opinions or biases.

[Rudbaeck]

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Maybe he likes the book more than you do.

Mason, has it occurred to you that Rolf's ratings are a hedonic scale based on how much he likes the books.Perhaps Rolf's hedonic function is not comparable to yours. That hardly merits any criticism.

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This would certainly be the case if it was books on poetry they were comparing. However, books on limit hold'em can be evaluated on a rather objective scale. For any given situation there is an identifiable best play, or small set of best plays.

If the author proposes something that differs from the most winning play, or fails to explain concepts, misunderstands something or makes a complete mess out of things then we can and should criticize them.

That someone is a good poker player is no guarantee that they are a good poker author. The most glaring example would be TJ Cloutier, no one can argue that he isn't a stellar tournament player, but he just flat can't explain it. The advice he gives demonstrably isn't about the game he plays himself.

We have a perfect ranking system for poker books actually: Money. If a proposed play doesn't win us money it's worthless. It might in fact be worse than worthless, it might cost us money.

Taste has nearly nothing to do with limit hold'em, and fairly little to do with no limit hold'em. We can't argue that Rolfs taste might be more in line with the McEvoy style, when it's obvious the McEvoy book won't make you a big winner.

All that said I agree with the real heart of the matter: Perhaps Mason would be well advised to not taunt those he disagrees with. If nothing else it's a bad rethorical strategy, if you pi[/i]ss off the opponent you can never ever convince him to change his mind no matter how preposterous his position is or how good your arguments are.

[ononimo]

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I believe Matthew Hilger discusses partial outs in his book, right? So, Slotboom is wrong about saying that you were the first to introduce it to literature..

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yes, I know that I first read about the concept of partial outs in Hilger's ITH.

[bygmesterf]

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Maybe he likes the book more than you do.

Mason, has it occurred to you that Rolf's ratings are a hedonic scale based on how much he likes the books.Perhaps Rolf's hedonic function is not comparable to yours. That hardly merits any criticism.

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This would certainly be the case if it was books on poetry they were comparing. However, books on limit hold'em can be evaluated on a rather objective scale. For any given situation there is an identifiable best play, or small set of best plays.

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How do you define "objective" if I may ask?

I doubt that books on hold'em could be evaluated on an "Objective" scale, and even if they could be Rolf isn't claiming that his reviews are anything more than his subjective feelings about a particular book. So it makes you look silly to them complain that his reviews arent "objective".

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The most glaring example would be TJ Cloutier, no one can argue that he isn't a stellar tournament player, but he just flat can't explain it. The advice he gives demonstrably isn't about the game he plays himself.

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I have to disagree, McEvoy/Cloutier advocate a "selective agressive" tournament style, and that is what they are known for. They're books and card player articles explain their thinking. And the general conclusion is that McEvoy/Cloutier do indeed play as they write.

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We have a perfect ranking system for poker books actually: Money. If a proposed play doesn't win us money it's worthless. It might in fact be worse than worthless, it might cost us money.

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That sort of results oriented thinking would work if poker were deterministic. But it's not. Also, books that might have won me money, might not have helped you win money.

Most poker instruction books about about showing you how the authors think about different things. Again that's not something that can be quantified.

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Taste has nearly nothing to do with limit hold'em, and fairly little to do with no limit hold'em. We can't argue that Rolfs taste might be more in line with the McEvoy style, when it's obvious the McEvoy book won't make you a big winner.

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Personal taste has everything to do with reviewing books or making hedonic judgements. And critising people for differences in personal taste is silly. Myself, I've found McEvoy's Tournament Poker, and Championship stud books have paid for themselves many times over.

I think Rolf plays, using the "Rolf Slotboom" style.

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All that said I agree with the real heart of the matter: Perhaps Mason would be well advised to not taunt those he disagrees with. If nothing else it's a bad rethorical strategy.

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It also makes you look stupid, if your critisisms are percived by others as petty or spiteful. Also, you cant convince people in matters of taste anyways, and its useless to try.