[howtodominate]

Thank you, Diamond Dog. Your comments are well conceived and well written.

To say that I “essentially” self published the book is a nice understatement and I appreciate the observance and the empathy. I wrote it, edited it, proofed it, laid out the pages and designed the cover. Naturally, some of those areas might have benefited from a helping hand.

A couple of defenses:

1) Yes, everybody knows the good player is not just tight aggressive and mixes his play. There are no new goals in poker. I’m hoping my book shows how to mix play. That’s what the book is about.

2) I did not intend to say limper games cannot be lucrative. Limper addicts, usually new players, jump on this right away. I did intend to say that the Dominator favors a game he can dominate while holding fewer premium cards and experiencing less violent bank roll swings. The Dominator wants control of the game.

My writing errors have been acknowledged many times, especially those beauties on pages 39 and 300.

On to lighter things. It’s fun to observe that the original writing would have made a book of over 1,000 pages and had to be pared down to 416 pages. Additionally, the ceiling price for poker books seems to be $30.00 and so a self published 416 page book retailing for that amount doesn’t make the author much money. (Maybe fewer of the fifty hand graphics would have helped?) In any case, money wasn’t the driving force in publishing the book.

A good friend and retired English teacher, who is also a poker player, told me, “There are two kinds of poker books being written today – boring, and boring with bad writing.” (Since he said that, several books have been written well.) But he impressed me with the need for anecdotes. Of course, he didn’t say anything about stories.

Some people say the stories get in the way; others say they especially appreciate them. But you are right in saying that the entire book is about people and the stories serve a purpose to that end.

Because of you, Diamond Dog, and others who have bestowed some reasonable critiques of the book, I now see the book could have been divided into beginners stuff, advanced stuff, and stories. But, I hope, it’s all the better for those who want to get some of all of those things.

I’m glad to see you’ll read the book again. Thank you; that’s the highest compliment.

Sam

A big “thank you” to all who have made commentary on the book. You are all priceless.