King Yao "Weighing the Odds"

[bobdibble]

[ QUOTE ]
May be unfair but 100 or so pages in there's no question I'm disappointed; and DIPO seems like an imprecise (reliance on implieds), unneccesarily complicated and inadequate way of getting around memorizing a handful of hand odds. Without some equity capabilities DIPO seems entirely useless. Give King Yao credit for being inventive; but the "new" way IMO isn't better or simpler or easier - so I don't see any merit beyond its uniqueness.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't care for it either, but one nice thing about DIPO is that it will work for games other than holdem. Rather than learn new tables for Omaha, 2-7 etc, you could use DIPO. And unless stud players have some sort of other trick for calculating odds when the number of known cards changes drastically from hand to hand, DIPO seems like it would be great for stud.

I'm going to revisit DIPO when I branch out into other games.

[Derek in NYC]

I dont remember the DIPO formula exactly, but it seems like it wouldnt adapt well to stud since the number of known and unknown cards changes by street as people fold out.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Shandrax:

I don't think I made that statement. I guess DIPO could be considered new ground, but that's not the type of new ground I would be interested in.

Best wishes,
Mason

[bobdibble]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Shandrax:

I don't think I made that statement. I guess DIPO could be considered new ground, but that's not the type of new ground I would be interested in.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Dave:

There actually is some new ground. I should be writing about it in our November and December Two Plus Two Internet Magazines. That's all I'll say for now.

Best wishes,
Mason


[/ QUOTE ]

So, was the 'new ground' comment regarding King's book, or are you going to be writting about new ground yourself?

If you are going to be writting about new ground, you have definitly raised my curiosity now.

[bobdibble]

[ QUOTE ]
I dont remember the DIPO formula exactly, but it seems like it wouldnt adapt well to stud since the number of known and unknown cards changes by street as people fold out.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't remember it exactly either, but my recolection is that this would be accounted for in the DIPO formula since it accounts for both the good and bad cards. Using both numbers in the equation is equivalent to using the current number of unknown cards since good+bad=total_unseen.

Because of this, it seems like it would be awesome for stud.

But then again... I know jack about stud and so there may be other tricks stud players use to perform these kind of calculations quickly. (I played a limit hi-lo stud tourney once on accident though when I thought I was registering for a limit holdem tourney [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

[Dopey]

Ben's response is exactly why King Yao's book is worth reading.

Even if it is determined that every single piece of information is duplicated from other 2+2 books that people have read, sometimes it takes is a slightly different way of explaining it for it to make the reader understand it correctly.

There are so many players out there who have read poker books but not improved because they dont understand what they are reading. Maybe the OP understood everything in the poker books he has read, but I find myself gaining a clearer understanding of similar concepts with every "good" poker book that I read.

While I haven't completed "WTOIHP" I have already gotten enough out of it to justify it cost.

Dopey [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[amulet]

if you read my posts about this book i say the same thing that you are saying. i have said it is good, and even though there is not much new (in my opinion), rereading concepts is great for your poker.

[gildwulf]

I am shocked that posters on here have said Yao's book adds little to poker theory.

Yao's section on short-handed play is the best of its kind in print. Period. There is better stuff to be found on the internet, but noone else has come out with a published short-handed section that comes even close. I've read over 20 poker books and I play 5/10 SH professionally and Yao's book really helped me solidify the SH fundamentals.

As for the fact that it regurgitates TOP theory, people have to look at these books for what they are: textbooks in poker theory. Some are better written than others. Some provide innovative ways of approaching the same problem. But the fundamentals are the fundamentals in any discipline and to criticize someone for including the fundamentals of poker in a book is very unfair. For instance, would you call a chemistry textbook unoriginal if it described the same theories as an older textbook but in an innovative way?

There is going to be overlap in any poker book because published books are supposed to make money and very advanced hand analysis (like that found in HUSH and MHSL on twoplustwo.com) would only make sense to a handful of poker players.

My two cents.

[jba]

[ QUOTE ]

Also, I feel his DIPO method is essentially worthless. While it's accurate, all it does is add needless calculations that would be very difficult to do at the table for most people. I just like to say something like "I'm getting 7-to-1 on a 5-to-1 shot, therefore I'm playing." DIPO appears to essentially do this, but then it does additional calculation involving good cards and bad cards, which to me is a complete waste.


[/ QUOTE ]

I like the book, and I like DIPO and use it all the time. And frankly I think Mason is being a bit unfair here -- how can you say you have a "5-1 shot" without: (a) memorizing the mapping between outs/draw quality -> odds, or (b) doing some "additional calculation involving good cards and bad cards"? I think you're leaving out an important step for the non-savants among us. The method you quote above is solving a problem of smaller scope than DIPO solves, so the comparison is unfair.

To be honest I think his biggest mistake was calling it DIPO and making it a big deal. If he just would have written the chapter on pot odds, said "here's how some people do it, here's how I do it", and used his DIPO method himself in the discussion, there wouldn't be this much fuss about it. It's really a marketing difference that has no impact on the quality of the book.

[Lawrence Ng]

The book is very good.

Buy the book.

Read the book.

Lawrence.