Review: Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games by Stox/Zobags

[seemorenuts]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, for the obvious reason - the bigger the winrate, the better the strategy, weighted by sample size.

[/ QUOTE ]

I ran this by a five year old I know

[/ QUOTE ]

I literally laughed out loud. Mason's humor rocks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I used to get asked a lot of questions when I was five.

I wonder why they stopped coming?? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]



Correction: When I turned twelve Noam Chomsky would ask me questions about morality, common sense and humanity.

[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Cardvark]

First thing, I very much appreciate this book as it presents a lot of helpful stuff for people like me willing to break into the tougher games. No need to say anymore on this as all the positive aspects of this book have already been mentioned [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

However, the book seems to have suffered from a bit of a rushed production, particularly lack of thorough proof-reading. Considering that the book is heavy on hand ranges, figures etc. this is a bit of a shame. I would suggest that 2+2 should collect the errata and post them on the website (outside the forums). That probably should be done for all the books.

[Cardvark]

Okay, a question for Stox and Zobag:

P.94 says, against an aggressive stealer (>50%) you should defend with about 70% of your hands in the BB. Then a folding range is given amounting to 18.4% of your hands meaning you would defend with 81.6% of your hands. Which info is correct, the 70% or the folding range?

[uDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
Okay, a question for Stox and Zobag:

P.94 says, against an aggressive stealer (>50%) you should defend with about 70% of your hands in the BB. Then a folding range is given amounting to 18.4% of your hands meaning you would defend with 81.6% of your hands. Which info is correct, the 70% or the folding range?

[/ QUOTE ]

Using the 35% equity criterion, the range of hands you should defend with is ~72% of possible hands. If you drop K2o and Q2o, it's ~70%.

--NotStox/NotZobags

[stoxtrader]

[ QUOTE ]
Okay, a question for Stox and Zobag:

P.94 says, against an aggressive stealer (>50%) you should defend with about 70% of your hands in the BB. Then a folding range is given amounting to 18.4% of your hands meaning you would defend with 81.6% of your hands. Which info is correct, the 70% or the folding range?

[/ QUOTE ]

netierh are correct and both are correct. If you are looking for a blueprint to follow exactly, this is not the book. If you are looking for some basic defaults, including the thought process used to arrive at them and some of the factors that would cause deviation then we're talking.

I generally play towards the looser set, but following either blindly is not the way to go. two big factors to consider here is the postflop skill of your opponent and yourself, this would be a subset of the "playability" factor used to deviate from the 35% equity rule of thumb for defending vs steal raises.

[Cardvark]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Okay, a question for Stox and Zobag:

P.94 says, against an aggressive stealer (>50%) you should defend with about 70% of your hands in the BB. Then a folding range is given amounting to 18.4% of your hands meaning you would defend with 81.6% of your hands. Which info is correct, the 70% or the folding range?

[/ QUOTE ]

netierh are correct and both are correct. If you are looking for a blueprint to follow exactly, this is not the book. If you are looking for some basic defaults, including the thought process used to arrive at them and some of the factors that would cause deviation then we're talking.

I generally play towards the looser set, but following either blindly is not the way to go. two big factors to consider here is the postflop skill of your opponent and yourself, this would be a subset of the "playability" factor used to deviate from the 35% equity rule of thumb for defending vs steal raises.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the quick reply, Stox (and uDevil!). Don't get me wrong here. I'm not looking for a blueprint. Just pointing out that the two infos presented as seemingly coherent were not:

[ QUOTE ]
...you should play approximately 70 percent of your hands, folding only: 32s, 43s-, 53s-, 63s-, 32o, 43o, 53o-, 64o-, 74o-, 85o-, 93o-, T2o.

[/ QUOTE ]

And while both infos could be correctly applied under certain circumstances they were not presented as alternatives anyway. At this point you were handing out a guideline ... which should of course be adapted depending on various factors ... no doubt. (Thanks for pointing it out again ... I've read your book twice ... but who knows ... I could have missed it [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]) It just wasn't clear what the "basic default" in this case is.

[SparkMan]

I have a question about the first in raising defaults.
Example KJo and K7s in the HJ.
I assume the gap in the two hands is that large mainly because of the pressure you can put on your opponent with a flush draw. Will you flop a four flush often enough to make up for the difference in high card strength and straight draws?

[stoxtrader]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question about the first in raising defaults.
Example KJo and K7s in the HJ.
I assume the gap in the two hands is that large mainly because of the pressure you can put on your opponent with a flush draw. Will you flop a four flush often enough to make up for the difference in high card strength and straight draws?

[/ QUOTE ]

the because is relativlye the easy - it's because our emperical results drilled down to those hands. these are certainly subject to sample size and variance issues.

the why is more difficult. yes flush draws and made flushes occur very infrequently, but possibly they makeup a big enough difference to offset the large discrepancy in pip strength. i.e. high card strength.

[Fadook]

As no-one else has brought this up I'm wondering if I might have just run into a printing error but anyway:
p.240/1 Hand No. 10: Something is clearly wrong here. HU on the Turn, 4.5 BB. Action is bet, raise, call. But the text then says there's 12.5 BB on the River. I know that's pretty minor but what I'm really wondering about is why Stox raised a blank turn then bet the river. I'm thinking there might be a mistake somewhere because I find it odd that he doesn't comment on these plays at all.

[Nottom]

I finally got around to gettign my copy from Borders today and was wondering why 2+2 authors can't put a little effort into getting a decent headshot for the cover?

Zobags's pic looks like they grabbed it from his yearbook and Stoxtrader's looks like it was taken with somebody's cell phone.

I know 2+2 prides itself on having the best information between the covers and they have put a little more effort into making their more recent books look like they weren't printed in Mason's basement, but they could still step it up a little.

Anyway I'm sure the book is great, but I had to say something bad.