Comment on Miller's Editorial

[12AX7]

True, there would be the problem of being able to accurately audit my results. A fair consideration im a group of people who play a game who's name mean "to bluff". I.E. lie. LOL!

And heck I'd want to put the following sort of provision in place from my side:

1) .too pay instructor x xx% of my *post tax net* calculated Jan 1 to Jan 1, year to year..

LOL!

I'm the type that always thought a stockbroker should be paid as a percentage of my gains, and have to re-imburse me for losses (on his particular reccomendations, can't hold him liable for my own judgements). That's the only way I can see to make a brokerage house's goals and the client's goals align. Smith-Barney's bottom line needs to be tied to my own. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Anyway, yeah, I guess it'd be a hard deal to enforce properly. But I don't know how else you could make a clear cut challenge to the poker literati of it.

I see these two story lines going. A) 95% fail. B) Folks make $xxx,000 a year at it "easily".

As one poster pointed out, you could interpret that this way....(though he used garbage men)...

"A Surgeon 'easily' can make $200,000 a year [but it takes a lot of work and is very hard to get to be a surgeon]."

But the way you generally encounter it in the literature it isn't couched that way. I'm sure you can find several places in SSHE where the optimistic interpretation is highlighted.

No crack on the book. It is one of the most direct and readable poker texts I've ever seen. Wish I'd had it years ago.

But in a similar vien, I mess with digital recording somewhat. If you are familiar with it, maybe you know what a PODxt is? (A guitar amp simulator.) Thier manuals and literature make it sound like the sound of all the classic rock tunes are built right in. The reality is something quite different, as some 120,000 post on one bulletin board alone testify.

So many things do not live up to thier hype, that I for one have become a cynic. And unapolgetically so. LOL!

[Peter McDermott]

[ QUOTE ]
If you are familiar with it, maybe you know what a PODxt is? (A guitar amp simulator.) Thier manuals and literature make it sound like the sound of all the classic rock tunes are built right in. The reality is something quite different, as some 120,000 post on one bulletin board alone testify.


[/ QUOTE ]

If someone expects an amp simulator to be actually playing the tunes for them, then it's no wonder that they're disappointed. They're clearly expecting it to do something that it isn't designed to do.

In order to get the tunes out of it, you've also got to put in the hard work of actually learning to be a competent player as well. And even this will only give you satisfactory results. It's still not going to make a basic competent player into Jimi Hendrix.

Surely poker and poker literature are pretty similar? In order to become competent, you've first got to learn and understand the various concepts involved. This is *all* that the books can teach you.

To be successful, you then have to have the discipline to be able to apply them at the right time. You also need the intelligence and the experience to be able to balance competing concepts and figure out which one is best to apply in any particular situation. Study can assist you in the process of moving you in that particular direction, but the books alone can't actually do it for you.

I wish that it could. I'm a quick student myself, but I don't always have the discipline to do what the theory tells me is the correct move, and I certainly don't have the experience necessary to assist me in choosing between two competing concepts most of the time.

So I just work on continuously improving my game, one concept at a time. And I'm definitely improving, which is all I can really hope for.

On a related note, I've noticed that everyone always seems to recommend SSHE to beginning players, but when I very first started playing, I think that there were just too many concepts in a book like SSHE. (OK, so I started with Jones' LLHE, but the same principle applies.)

However, when I picked up Sklansky's first book, Hold 'Em Poker, there was just enough information in there for me to be able to hold most of it in my head most of the time. Because I wasn't trying to balance too many concepts simultaneously, I was finally able to pay enough attention to the very basic things that I really needed to master before moving on -- things like starting hands, position, reading opponents hands, etc.

I guess I'm saying that poker is a lot like being a musician. You really need to master the basic things like scales and chords, before you can move on to being any kind of virtuoso.

[TimsterToo]

[ QUOTE ]
On a related note, I've noticed that everyone always seems to recommend SSHE to beginning players, but when I very first started playing, I think that there were just too many concepts in a book like SSHE. (OK, so I started with Jones' LLHE, but the same principle applies.)


[/ QUOTE ]

Ed Miller's new book "Getting Started in Holdem" fills that gap quite nicely.

I do think though that SSHE is a good book to start with if you can deal with just reading one chapter at a time and applying what you've learned and when you're comfortable with it move on.

The starting hand chapter is the best one I've come across in the various books I've read. If I get friends started on poker I tell them to play for a couple of hours, then read the whole preflop part of SSHE, print out a starting hand chart and play some more.

In the microlimits it instantly transforms them from losing players to winning players. (I'm talking 0,02/0,04 etc)

I did notice though that every time I learned a new concept or reread SSHE I would instantly start loosing. It's very hard for a beginning player (or to be more exact, it was very hard for me [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) to learn a new concept and then understand that it's not always applicable. But subtlety is learned through experience.

[ptmusic]

I still love my original Pod ('course I ain't selling my Marshall half stack either)! BTW, are you talking about the musicplayer forum?

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
In my private conversations the past few years I have mentioned that Two Plus Two'ers were slowly beginning to dominate poker. By this I mean that they will make up a large number of the best players regardless of the type of poker or stakes being played. This includes tournaments as well as the cash games, and Internet play as well as B&M. Ed's editorial is another bit of evidence that this is now happening.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't exactly call it evidence, but I agree with everything else you wrote in your OP.

[flair1239]

I think if you looked hard enough, One of the more common results would be someone like myself.

Who has learned to grind and play moderately well. I may never make $200,000. But I do make enough to pay may my daycare expenses, alimony, and a good chunk of my monthly bills.

So although I may not have the kind of blockbuster results, your editor's note refered to, my life has been changed for the better. I think these stories are probably more common and more realistic. Also possibly just as gratifying for you...

Oh, by the way... Thank you (Mason, Daivd, and ED) your work has improved my life.

[limon]

heres an anecdote. take it for what it's worth. a respected poster and top online multitabler (who shall remain nameless) did win 180k last year in the mid limits and is up only 10k this year, which is about .0000001bb/100. he started the year on a $36,000 losing steak and has just recently got his head back above water. many of these 200k a year players have earned this for EXACTLY ONE YEAR. we now know that a 650 bb downswing is commonplace, how many have had to live through it yet? we'll see what the future brings

[Ed Miller]

[ QUOTE ]
heres an anecdote. take it for what it's worth. a respected poster and top online multitabler (who shall remain nameless) did win 180k last year in the mid limits and is up only 10k this year, which is about .0000001bb/100. he started the year on a $36,000 losing steak and has just recently got his head back above water. many of these 200k a year players have earned this for EXACTLY ONE YEAR. we now know that a 650 bb downswing is commonplace, how many have had to live through it yet? we'll see what the future brings

[/ QUOTE ]

You're definitely right. A lot of the guys who earned 200k in one year will never hit that number again in their lives. Others (though likely a smaller group) will hit it repeatedly.

My point is that if you do hit 200k, whether that's your "true" earn or nowhere near, you should be smart about what you do with your money.

[RED_RAIN]

[ QUOTE ]

[Years ago, David wrote that earning $50,000 a year from poker] "should be no big deal." Now it seems like maybe that number should be more like $200,000.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Banking $200k+ a year playing live would indeed put you very near the top. But doing so online is not entirely remarkable.

[/ QUOTE ]

How many posters on 2+2 do you think make over $200,000/yr online and live combined even? I wouldn't even think 5%. Even with the 42414 registered users, I wouldn't even think over 500 make $200,000/yr+ which is barely over 1%.

I'm just trying to think about the mid/high-stakes posters and even the bankroll people have for the games. Another question might be how many do you even think play 100/200+ regularlly.

I guess I just feel your statement makes it sound like it's pretty easy and lots of people are doing it. I also don't think there are a ton of full-time poker players on this site but instead a ton who have a job and play poker on the side where $200,000/yr would be significant bank.

[baronzeus]

[ QUOTE ]
we now know that a 650 bb downswing is commonplace

[/ QUOTE ]

this is totally wrong. i'm surprised ed miller agrees.