Lee Jones Flawed Thinking
I am sure Lee Jones trys very hard to be a good poker writer. And that he is an honest man and a good guy. But none of that changes the fact that he is NOT a good poker writer. At least not by the standards of writers on other subjects. (Serious subjects like bridge building, or less serious subjects like chess, bridge or backgammon.)
In order to write an excellent book about a subject, it is almost certainly necessary that you either be a superb practioner of the subject and a very good thinker and explainer, or a very good practitioner and a superb thinker and explainer. This is especially true once you go beyond a beginner's book. Lee Jones, like many other poker authors, does not meet either of these standards.
The most recent example occurs in the Cardplayer article, discussed already on another thread, where he says that Dan Harrington is wrong to fold Q7 to an all in head up raise. He admits it is close but goes on to say that the game theory strategy says to call and that given the player is an unknown quantity you should stick with that game theory strategy. (I will assume for the sake of argument that the strategy he presents in the article is in fact correctly calculated. But I must add that if it was, Lee Jones almost certainly had nothing to do with those calculations and in fact would have no idea how to do them. Yet he sort of claims half credit.)
The problem is that there are at least FOUR good reasons why, in the scenario presented, you should fold hands that game theory would indicate are close calls. And Jones does not even mention them.
They are:
1. Dan is certainly the better player and will thus gain from avoiding playing big pots when the situation is close. It is true that this factor is not a big deal when the blinds are this high, especially if the opponent is aggressive, but it does count for something.
2. To make the call correct, requires that the opponent is as loose or looser than the game theory move in strategy that the article espouses. But the fact is that most players play tighter than this AS THEIR OWN ARTICLE ADMITS in the fifth paragraph. The notion that the right strategy against an unknown player is game theory strategy is DEAD WRONG. Even if this was the last hand you would ever play, the right strategy against an unknown player is a strategy based on the average playing styles of unknown opponents.
3. Even if you believed your opponent played as well as you and even if you thought he probably played approximately game theory strategy, you should still fold a close decision. Because as long as you think there is a decent chance that he is actually significantly tighter than expected, (in the situation given, remember, this is only the second hand of the head up match) your overall EV is negative if you make this call. Folding can only be a small error. Calling might be a big one.
4. The above holds true even if this is the last hand you will play. But the effect is even stronger because there are more hands to come. In other words if it turns out upon further obsetrvation that he is significantly tighter than he should be preflop, your bad call becomes that much worse because such an opponent is in terrible shape once you deduce this. To make this point clearer, suppose you both had giant stacks and a player moved in on his first hand. If there is a reasonable chance you are up against someone who plays too tightly preflop, which practically guarantees you the tournament, you should fold this first hand with anything short of aces or kings. The same principle applies here, though not as strongly.
I don't blame Lee Jones for wanting to be in the upper echelon of poker writers. And I commend him for seeking out a mathmetican to devise a strategy that seems correct even though it is annoying he sort of claims some credit for it, The fact is that the article is probably a good one. At least if he hadn't ruined it in his zeal to find a flaw in Dan's book. A zeal that only succeeded in once again highlighting that his ideas and words cannot be counted on by serious players.
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