Slotboom on SSHE

[binions]

If this has been discussed, I apologize in advance. I wonder if Ed will take this criticism to heart in the 2nd edition.

http://www.rolfslotboom.com/

In the beginning of the book, Mr. Miller had an excellent analysis of calculating outs, where he gave a great description of the concept of partial outs. On page 101, he wrote: "You must account for partial outs when you are counting. If you count them for full value, you will overvalue your hand and call too often. If you discount them entirely, you will undervalue your hand and fold too much." His description of how to do this is truly excellent, and is indeed exactly the way most pros calculate their odds, despite the fact that to my knowledge no one before Mr. Miller had ever discussed it in print.

Therefore, I was genuinely disappointed when in the remainder of the book, in situations where drawing hands were behind and it was time to analyze their possible strength, the author himself used the old system of just counting the number of cards that could improve your hand, and not the odds of making your hand and then winning! For instance, on page 123, in a multiway pot (assumption from page 114), Miller estimates the 3c 2c on a flop Qc 8c 2h (i.e. bottom pair / low kicker / three high flush draw) as a "strong" hand, a "robust holding", and most importantly: as a fourteen-out draw. Now, in a multiway pot, this can almost never be correct. Even if you are not up against a higher flush draw (and in a multiway pot, you should take this possibility into consideration at all times, especially with your suited cards this small) you still can't count this hand as fourteen pure outs - exactly because of the reasons the author himself had given in earlier sections.

Quoting from page 106: "Decide how likely each card is to make you a winner. Some cards give you the nuts and are full outs. Others like overcards, that may not be enough to win if hit, or any card that may cause a split pot, should be discounted as partial outs." And, from the same page: "Decide how likely redraws are if you make your hand on the turn: potential redraws devaluate your hand."

Now, in this situation, because every turn card that improves your hand will still offer a whole lot of redraws, with not a single nut card in the deck and with the (albeit remote) possibility of even be drawing entirely dead (in the case of being up against a higher flush draw and a set), I think it is unforgivable to rate this hand as a fourteen-out draw. It is a hand that has fourteen cards to improve - but as the author has written himself, that is not the same. By counting outs in two manners (the "wrong" manner not just in this hand but also in a few others, and the "correct" manner like in the entire "Counting outs" section and also in hands like the one described on p. 241), he makes things unnecessary complicated for the readers who almost certainly get confused, for no other reason than that the author simply hasn't stayed consistent with his counting methods throughout the book.

[MaxPower]

That is a dumb critcism. Lets say we count outs differently and we give ourselves 11 outs instead of 14. What difference does it make? We still have a strong hand.

[chopchoi]

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That is a dumb critcism. Lets say we count outs differently and we give ourselves 11 outs instead of 14. What difference does it make? We still have a strong hand.

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If that's how you think, then why bother counting outs at all? I think Slotbooms criticism is valid. If you are going to publish a book, you need to make it as accurate as possible. Granted, Ed Miller and Mason are only human, so Ed is going to make some mistakes, and Mason isn't going to catch all of them. but any inaccuracies should be corrected in subsequent pressings. The "It doesn't matter if we miscount the outs since the odds were good enough for a call anyway," stance that you advocate leads to a very sloppy book.

Furthermore, the difference between 11 and 14 outs is not as insignificant as you think. True, in limit holdem you pretty much always want to at least call with 11 outs. However, there might be times that you woiuld want to raise with 14 outs, but just call with 11. And three additional outs can easily make the difference between a call and a fold in no limit.

[Ed Miller]

This is certainly a fair point. In fact, it's an issue I wrestled with as I wrote those parts of the book...

The essential problem is that I use two different definitions of the term "out." I use the word "out" more or less as a percentage chance to improve to the best hand by the river, and I use "out" to mean "a card that could improve you to the best hand."

That is, sometimes an "out" can be a fraction, and sometimes it must be a whole number. Confusing. In fact, I considered redefining the fractional-out concept as "partial outs" and sticking to that term consistently throughout the book. But I didn't.

So I will be the first to admit that the term "out" is used in a confusing and inconsistent manner throughout the book. Likewise, in GSiH, the term "value bet" or "bet for value" is used in a (in my opinion) similarly confusing manner... it's one term that means two different things. I considered coining a new term for the second meaning, but I didn't, as I thought that might be equally confusing.

So here's my take on it: I am not totally satisfied by how I used the term "out" in SSH. But I figured, and I think fairly, that people who are intelligent enough to study and understand the book in general will figure it out. That is, when an intelligent person digests SSH, they'll look at the times I call a 32s flush draw a "14-out draw" and say, "But you have to discount the partial outs, so it's probably only about a 12 out draw."

Or more to the point, I said, "Fixing this will be time-consuming and lead to awkward and confusing usage all over the place. I'll just leave it as it is and hope most people figure it out." It's a tradeoff I made consciously, and though I'm not entirely comfortable with it, I'm not sure I made the wrong decision.

PS. I appreciate Rolf's generally quite flattering review.

[MaxPower]

The last I checked the book is about limit holdem.

I don't think it is an error that needs to be fixed and it is not confusing.

The point of that chapter is to teach you how to evaluate the strength of your hand on the flop. The exact number of outs is not important in that example. Either way you have a strong hand. The reader already knows that not all of the outs are clean, he doesn't need to be told again.

Slootboom's criticism is a nitpick. If they had said "as many as 14 outs" instead of "14 outs" we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[Ed Miller]

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Slootboom's criticism is a nitpick. If they had said "as many as 14 outs" instead of "14 outs" we wouldn't be having this discussion.

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While I basically fall in your camp in my "big picture" take on this issue, I don't think it's quite fair to call it a nitpick. Often English is imprecise, and I am far from a perfect user of English anyway, so it's important in books like SSH to take active steps to make things precise whenever possible.

[Wetdog]

I thought the same as Rolf when I read the book. But I also thought to myself, "Maybe Ed wrote this chapter before the discounting chapter and they cut and pasted this in later. Anyway, it's not really 14 outs because ..." If another reader didn't pick up on that also, they need to re-read the book. I know I did. I should read it again but I'm tired of it for now, so I'm re-starting HEPFAP.

Good job, Ed. English is my first language too, but I'm not a good writer. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[grimel]

It's frickin' English, you can have to, too, or two; but or butt; bass (fish) or bass (instrument); new or Knew; shew or shoe; blue can be a color or sad.

Trying to account for every 14th definition possible conflict would drive you crazy.

I'm not a poker genius by any stretch. I was able to follow it.

BTW, stop writing books! I can only read and re-read so fast (which is pretty fast BTW).

SSHE has done more for my limit game (which is still in need of great help) than the rest combined. I find when I'm struggling to escape a downswing the best cure is read the micro forum and re-read SSHE. I've found at least 3 sections that weren't there the first time through.

That and your "you fold to damn much" thread are big leak stoppers.

[skp]

A good compromise would be to include a footnote giving the above explanation. I think it would be unwieldy to say in the text of the book that "this is a hand with 14 outs but it's only 12 outs because of x,y,and z, but it's still a robust hand etc etc."

You need the footnote just for the first instance in the book where you mention the theoretical number of outs rather than the adjusted number of outs.

BTW, I don't know about you guys but when I see this flop in real life, I do indeed think 14 outs. I don't think 12 outs. But I also have it in the back of mind that not all of my outs lead to wins. Same with say staying on with overcards. I always think I have 6 outs with Ak on a turn of T932 if I put the other guy on a pair although I also know that I ain't going to win 6 out of 44 times.

[maurile]

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A good compromise would be to include a footnote giving the above explanation.

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Ed doesn't believe in footnotes.