The Poker Mindset

[Niediam]

How can you say that no other books cover these topics when you have only read 10 out of the hundreds of books out there?

I havn't read TPM so I don't know what materially is really covered but it seems to me that atleast some of these topics have been discussed in Inside The Poker Mind and Your Worst Poker Enemy.

Looking at the table of contends for ITPM I see several sections which seem similar including:

On Randomness, Rushes, Hot Seats, and Bad Luck Dealers
Bad Beat? Think Again
How Am I Doing? Who Cares?
On Tilt: Part I
On Tilt: Part 2
A Poker Player in Therapy

[gurgeh]

I'm about half way through, and I have mixed feelings. Knowing what a downswing can be intellectually and accepting it when it happens are two very different things. Hilger also states that you could very well go on a 250 BB downswing only to see yourself then go on another one, despite the fact that he states this should be a rare occurrence in the first place. That, and it still talks about swings in terms of bets rather than buyins, which is unfortunate given that LHE is dying.

Has anyone read Your Worst Poker Enemy? I'd like to know if it covers essentially the same ground.

[CasinoR7]

[ QUOTE ]

I've read HOH 1 and 2, Sklanksy's Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players, Erik Lingren's WPT Tourney book, SS1 and SS2 (Only the chapters and Limit and NLHE), Barry Greanstein's "Ace On The River", and the first book I read was Phil Gordon's silly little "Poker: The Real Deal". That book got me hooked on poker. It was a good first book.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are comparing apples with oranges. The books you listed are dealing with strategy and less with psychology.

[Wongboy]

When I read the 7 habits of highly effective people, it taught me nothing that I did not already know. That being said, it was also the book that contributed the most to my success in my career (accounting).

Books can add value even when they do not tell you new things and/or cover things that may not seem to be extremely relevant to your current job.

[AngusThermopyle]

[ QUOTE ]
I have not read the book, but ....

[/ QUOTE ]

I did not read the rest of your post, but ....

[Adman]

It is a very good book- pretty much anything Matthew Hilger writes is worth reading and no, the material in TPM is not available in any other book that I have read and I have read over 60 poker books. I must admit though, I haven't yet ordered or read "Your worst poker enemy" so I couldn't say whether some of the same material is covered there. I kind of doubt it, Schoonmaker has nowhere near the understanding of poker and the probabilities that surround it that Hilger or Taylor have. In fact I once read an article that Shoonmaker wrote for Card Player which was one of the stupidest things I have ever read. He tried to draw analogies between performing badly at the poker table and performing badly in other pure skill type activities and sports. He virtually dismissed the luck factor involved in poker and claimed if you were losing you were almost certainly doing something wrong and were to blame. That is just not necessarily true. The best players in the world suffer brutal downswings just like the rest of us. For him to claim the luck factor is almost a non consideration in a players results over a given time period tells me he doesn't understand the game that well or has not played a whole lot of poker. In this game, in the short term the luck factor is huge.

[Montrealcorp]

"luck factor is almost a non consideration in a players results over a given time period "

how can u beat againt this?is saying once u past short term luck factor,the luck factor doesnt change anything since anyone as the same luck range on long time period???at least that what im undertsanding of this and i find it totally true...

[Adman]

He was saying that if you are running bad, don't blame it on luck, it MUST be bad play on your part. Sorry, that is just wrong. I have played a lot of limit hold 'em. I am a proven winner (I started at the micros and turned $20 into a 5 figure bankroll purely through shorthanded cash games- no tourneys) and I can guarantee you that you can play optimally for thousands of hands and still lose due to bad luck. I have been on downswings that lasted over 200 big bets playing against total fish night in night out. If you cannot grasp that or don't believe that then you simply don't understand the variance possible in this game and that tells me you haven't played a whole lot. Winning 5bb an hour over 10000 hands does not make you a proven winner. Sorry. Over a lifetime of poker- and I'm talking hundreds of thousands, even over a million hands- then if you are an overall loser it would be unrealistic to claim it were due to bad luck. If it were over 10 or 20 thousand hands you could easily lose due to bad luck even playing optimally. There may be nothing you need to re-work in your game, you just need your luck to turn around.

[JJay1231]

couldn't agree more. You can play thousands of hands and play almost optimally and still be behind just because of the "luck" factor. It could take many thousands of hands to know if your're a long term winner, as the variance in poker is quite large and its a game of small edges.

Im about half way through the book and so far I think it's a little gem!

[gurgeh]

[ QUOTE ]
He was saying that if you are running bad, don't blame it on luck, it MUST be bad play on your part. Sorry, that is just wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm going to resist the urge to respond sarcastically or smugly, but the truth is you are very wrong about this. I'm in the process of reviewing the book right now and despite a number of things I take issue with, he states over and over that you must accept the realities of poker variance and downswings, even as a winning player. I can't think of any part of the book that would be consistent with him saying that all downswings are due to bad play; quite the opposite.

I don't know where the quotation "luck factor is almost a non consideration in a players results over a given time period " in the above post comes from, but I think it is certainly way out of context, if not completely wrong.