HOH (and other poker books) in the NY Times

[MicroBob]

Thought this article was kind of interesting:

story

The Conquistador Defense
By JAMES McMANUS

Poker primers are expensive, usually $30 or more for a paperback, yet publishers of the best ones have a hard time printing them fast enough. We should not be surprised. As "Galapagos Chaz" Darwin wrote in 1871: "If some one man in a tribe, more sagacious than the others, invented a new snare or weapon, or other means of attack or defence, the plainest self-interest, without the assistance of much reasoning power, would prompt the other members to imitate him."

And as Jared Diamond (no poker nickname required) shows in "Guns, Germs, and Steel," when Francisco Pizarro and 168 Spanish soldiers defeated Atahuallpa's army of 80,000 Incas at Cajamarca in 1532, the decisive factor was the Spaniards' ability to read and write. (Each conquistador also faced much shorter odds than the 5,619 entrants in the main event of this year's World Series.)

"Literacy made the Spaniards heirs to a huge body of knowledge about human behaviour and history," Mr. Diamond wrote. "By contrast, not only did Atahuallpa have no conception of the Spaniards themselves, and no personal experience of any invaders from overseas, but he had not even heard (or read) of similar threats to anyone else, anywhere else, any time previously in history."

Poker is another form of combat that repays literate groundwork - in spades, as it were. The first time an opponent check-raises (tempting you to attack by checking, then ambushing you with a raise), you might not know how to fight back. Decades of trial and error can teach you some effective countertactics, but these days you can add them to your arsenal in a couple weeks by studying primers by Doyle Brunson, David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth, T. J. Cloutier, Tom McEvoy, Barry Shulman and others. The cost of their books is an infinitesimal fraction of the bankroll required to play uninformed poker for even one session or two, let alone year after year.

Dan Harrington is the latest entry into this field. Mr. Harrington won the World Series championship in 1995; then, by maneuvering through enormous fields to the final table of both the 2003 and 2004 events, he clinched the decade's best record in the main event. But it is the ultrafine grain of his poker counsel as much as his track record that makes the two-volume "Harrington on Hold'em: Expert Strategy for No-Limit Tournaments" required reading for anyone hoping to win one.

A typical chapter provides telling (and funny) examples of how novices think about tournament hands, then annotates it with a long list of revealing questions the pros ask themselves. Where do you sit in relation to the aggressive and passive players? How does your chip stack compare to your opponents'? How close are you to the money? What are the pot odds? What are your cards?

These are but a few of the things to consider before entering a pot, and after the community cards hit the table, the list gets much longer, the problems exponentially trickier. "If this were a short list," Mr. Harrington wrote, "the game would be much easier, more people would do it well, and fewer players would make any real money. Be glad that it's a tough, rather than an easy thing to do."

Writing in the tradition of Mr. Sklansky's definitive "Theory of Poker," Mr. Harrington deftly unpacks the math and logic of no-limit tournament strategy. It helps that Bill Robertie, a chess and backgammon expert who wrote the book with Mr. Harrington, has also written several first-rate gaming primers. Together they have found clear language, equations and diagrams to explain highly complex and sometimes counterintuitive concepts - folding before the flop with pocket aces, for example, or the subtle relationship between bluffing (betting with a weak hand) and slow-playing (not betting with a strong hand).

Volume 2 introduces the concept of M, the ratio of your current chip stack to the total of the blinds and antes. Mr. Harrington shows how attending to your M as you move through four color-coded danger zones will allow you to steal a few critical pots while you still have enough chips to make a difference.

As for overall strategy, "Action Dan" - a comic allusion to Mr. Harrington's conservative table image - recommends trying on different styles for size: superaggressive, tight, loose. He also explains how to shift back and forth among them, and why. (Answer: You'll win the biggest pots playing in your least favorite mode because your opponents will be more likely to misread your intentions.)

His teacherly approach devotes about half of his 831 pages to homework-style problems. At the end of each chapter, the reader is wedged into a challenging variety of tight hold'em corners and forced to think his way out before checking his moves against Mr. Harrington's recommendations.

Those who don't do their homework must stand in the corner in dunce caps and, worse, finish out of the money. And it seems fair to say that if Atahuallpa had had "Action Dan" as his teacher, the World Series might not be played in a town called "The Meadows" in Spanish.

[Crispy86]

[ QUOTE ]
Thought this article was kind of interesting:

story

The Conquistador Defense
By JAMES McMANUS

Poker primers are expensive, usually $30 or more for a paperback, yet publishers of the best ones have a hard time printing them fast enough. We should not be surprised. As "Galapagos Chaz" Darwin wrote in 1871: "If some one man in a tribe, more sagacious than the others, invented a new snare or weapon, or other means of attack or defence, the plainest self-interest, without the assistance of much reasoning power, would prompt the other members to imitate him."


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the link and reference, however recopying the entire article most likely infringes on copyright issues. As a rule, a link and a couple of paragraphs at most, or a summary, is the way to go. Peace.

Albert

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the link and reference, however recopying the entire article most likely infringes on copyright issues. As a rule, a link and a couple of paragraphs at most, or a summary, is the way to go. Peace.

Albert

[/ QUOTE ]

The NY Times requires registration to view their website articles. The registration, while free, is annoying. I view posting NY Times articles in total as striking a small blow for freedom from pointless bureaucratic nonsense. It's a small act of rebellion in an increasingly overly-managed world.

Thanks for the post, Bob.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Ben:

At Two Plus Two we're very concerned about observing copyright laws. So it's probably best in the future to only post a paragraph and then a link.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the link and reference, however recopying the entire article most likely infringes on copyright issues. As a rule, a link and a couple of paragraphs at most, or a summary, is the way to go. Peace.

Albert

[/ QUOTE ]

The NY Times requires registration to view their website articles. The registration, while free, is annoying. I view posting NY Times articles in total as striking a small blow for freedom from pointless bureaucratic nonsense. It's a small act of rebellion in an increasingly overly-managed world.

Thanks for the post, Bob.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you want to rebel against their ill-conceived registration policy, just fill in fake data or register with information from bugmenot.com.

I'm surprised they haven't realized by now that the signal-to-noise ratio for their registration data is so low as to make the process completely worthless. In any event, if you want to "strike a blow", there are much better ways of doing it than copying and pasting the article.

[MicroBob]

sorry mason.

i'm personally more with Ben on this one...and I just think it's easier to read the whole article here then going to the link.
I also don't think there's that much to worry about doing the copy-and-paste thing.

However, these aren't my forums, they are yours.
So it's not really my decision to make.

I will happily abide by your request in the future to not do the copy-and-past thing.

-----------------------

Congrats on the NY Times publicity.
Not too shabby.

It's nice that they have McManus writing so many poker-articles for them these days. Most of his observations are pretty accurate. He does a much better job of explaining poker to the masses then most journalists.


My Dad frequently forwards any online article he sees on poker.
I have told him that the Harrington books referenced in this article are from the 2+2 gang that taught me to be a winner in the first place....and that those books are absolutely a couple of the very best.

[cwsiggy]

HOH vol1 - #26 on Amazon
HOH vol2 - #39

wow!