Why can no one write a truly advanced poker book ?

[bustedromo]

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Assume you are a professional poker player and you make your living from a small set of secrets. Why share them with the public if that book doesn't make you enough money to live from it for the rest of your life?

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Because it's not just about secrets, it's about thinking under pressure. Financial pressure, time pressure, event pressure, venue pressure, physical conditions pressure.

The level of thinking involved in the some of the example hands in Barry's book is only moderately difficult if you're sitting at home with no pressure, but extremely difficult in real conditions.

Players who can learn a style or technique (such as many of the moves associated with the Gus Hansen style) and would actually pose a real threat to the livelihood a world-class players who successfully practice that style or technique probably don't need a book to learn it. And this set of players is far outnumbered by those who would tend to mis-apply the secrets. In certain respects it's a win-win.

I wonder if the problem is that those pushing the envelope in poker education prefer other mediums. PXF, CR ... etc. But videos of online games force your pace, either too slow or too fast. I've always had this experience with video learning. I much prefer written instruction.

[Wilco23]

[ QUOTE ]
in the case of no-limit hold 'em:

1. there's a ton of "basic" stuff that isn't in print


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Matt - I hear people say this all the time. I'm hoping your book will address these issues, and I'm planning on purchasing it asap. Could you just give even a brief generic of one such concept? I'm always curious as to what people mean when they make a statement like this. Thanks, and looking forward to the book.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
in the case of no-limit hold 'em:

1. there's a ton of "basic" stuff that isn't in print


[/ QUOTE ]

Matt - I hear people say this all the time. I'm hoping your book will address these issues, and I'm planning on purchasing it asap. Could you just give even a brief generic of one such concept?

[/ QUOTE ]

Go to Ed Miller's web site. There is an excellent 7 part article that would make an excellent intro book to basic NL strategy. In fact, he has posted on the ITH forums that he might make a book out of it.

[phydaux]

ITH?

Great articly, BTW. I downloaded all seven of then and made a pdf.

[jeffnc]

I think the Stox book is advanced.

While "poker is a game of imperfect information" is the common mantra, it's exaggerated. Chess for example, might theoretically be a game of perfect information, but in practice it's a silly point. It's a game of imperfeect information in practice because no one, not even a computer, can analyze the near-infinite decision trees. It has not been done in our lifetime, so it's a moot point. Some say it will be done someday, some say it cannot be done.

JackCase argues that "At any point in a chess game there is an optimal move". That's basically irrelevant since the optimal move is unknowable with current technology. Except for obvious cases like forced mate in a small number of moves. This easy situation would be roughly analogous to knowing that you should bet on the river with the nuts if all your opponents have checked to you.

Conversely, if you treat a game like limit with hand ranges and probabilities, then indeed it much resembles the game of "perfect information" like chess. Read the Stox book and I think you'll see what I mean. Of course this depends on you estimating the hand ranges and probabilities correctly (including the probabilities of bluffs). But when you have the estimates, it becomes a straight math formula. (There are certainly almost infinitely fewer lines in limit holdem than in chess.)

NL is a different animal and is sometimes less open to analysis. (In essence, limit poker provides a series of discrete decisions, while in NL it's basically infinite due to the choice of bet amount.) However Harrington has a section on SHAL (Structured Hand Analysis) in Vol 2.

[Montrealcorp]

"How come the poker programs seem to struggle against (multiple) intermediate players yet can play very tough chess?"

first off,chess program developper strat as early as 1960....u think they started that soon for poker?

second,far less efforts have been made to make powerfull poker program then chess(how many company sell chess programs compare to poker??).

third,i just seriously hope that u dont think chess is easier then poker lol.....

4th,its only since the 90s that chess program started to beat expert or master rank in chess,before that it was a real joke for about 20 years work from the companys...

5th,yes u hear computer beating world chess champion but belive me....those arent "normal" computer where u can buy a program in the store,its a made super computer that cost million of $ and can see around over 100 millions of moves and calculation per seconds.
with a computer like that with 3 technician over it,im pretty sure they could beat any intermeditae player like u talk about,w/o the need of work it took for chess.

with all the analysis a computer can make on your play,it could be pretty powerfull if the time,energy ,money,etc that need, would to be put by corporations,maybe the need for it and the sell for it just isnt there to bring the interest for it...

anywya.thats beside the point,im telling u this:i see lot of psychologycal similirtites in poker as in chess.
if u dont belive me i really dont mind anyway

[rubberloon]

Because there is no absolutely correct line of play. Bad beats are proof of this. If you know the odds and play right, both of which concepts are fuzzy, you'll have much better luck. Mathematics is very badly taught in North America, so most people don't have a clue, and cannot calculate odds. Professional poker players understand odds either by experience, calculation or intuition, because if they didn't they'd be dead broke. Explaining things clearly in a book is very difficult, that said, read every poker book in your chosen field and read it critically (is this true or false in my own experience? dunno is an acceptable answer), you will learn something new and useful, I always have. Even if it's "THERE I LEARNT HOW NOT TO DO IT!"

[J.A.Sucker]

There are three inherent issues.

First, most authors just don't have enough knowledge to write such a book. Many of the players who do know these types of things won't write the book because it takes a lot of time and energy (more than one would think). Even if they wanted to write the book, many of these guys would have a hard time writing something that can be understood.

Second, the market for books with only advanced knowledge is extremely small. Why make a tremendous book if five people are going to buy it? Beside this, my opinion on the best books for learning has always been that they start with fundamentals that most readers can grasp and then move you into the really advanced stuff. The best books for doing this transition so smoothly that you don't even know you've ever learned really advanced stuff. For example, Feynman's Lectures on Physics are unbelievably good books that start off really basic, but if you know understand the stuff in there, you've got all the tools you'd need to be a great physicist. That's one hell of a book, IMO.

Finally, poker is a game of incomplete information and this impacts how you can discuss it because the number of possible outcomes goes up too fast to consider every option. It's been years since I've read about chess, but I recall a lot of situational analysis. This isn't always what top poker is about.

[MarkD]

Sucker,

Can you give an objective overview of how your book will turn out in terms of beginner / intermediate / advanced? I'm not looking for hype and will buy the book regardless, but would appreciate a real objective point of view as to your target audience and the level of your book.

[bustedromo]

[ QUOTE ]
There are three inherent issues.

First, most authors just don't have enough knowledge to write such a book. Many of the players who do know these types of things won't write the book because it takes a lot of time and energy (more than one would think). Even if they wanted to write the book, many of these guys would have a hard time writing something that can be understood.

Second, the market for books with only advanced knowledge is extremely small. Why make a tremendous book if five people are going to buy it? Beside this, my opinion on the best books for learning has always been that they start with fundamentals that most readers can grasp and then move you into the really advanced stuff. The best books for doing this transition so smoothly that you don't even know you've ever learned really advanced stuff. For example, Feynman's Lectures on Physics are unbelievably good books that start off really basic, but if you know understand the stuff in there, you've got all the tools you'd need to be a great physicist. That's one hell of a book, IMO.

Finally, poker is a game of incomplete information and this impacts how you can discuss it because the number of possible outcomes goes up too fast to consider every option. It's been years since I've read about chess, but I recall a lot of situational analysis. This isn't always what top poker is about.

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I disagree with your (2) and (3).

Re (2) : There is a poker boom going on. And there is no reason why the book's audience must consist only of those who will get very far with the book. Actually, it's the opposite. Just like all the PXF and CR subscribers who almost never login. Just like during the day trading boom the number of people who bought expensive services, went to expensive seminars, and bought expensive books and never got much out of them. The financial incentive to write a truly advanced poker books is definitely there. No question about that.

Re (3) : incomplete information is exactly what makes an truly advanced book so compelling. Great players don't always put players on a definite hand. They might have them on 2,3 or even more possible hands. How do they decide the relative probabilities of each hand, and how does that then figure into their rough calc of expected value of calling (or other play).