Winning in tough holdem games by stoxtrader - Page 2

MarkD · #11 08-09-2007, 07:41 PM

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Not to HJ this thread but do you guys like this book? I got it and was not impressed at all. Thoughts?

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Depends on what you play. I found it's pretty good for 10/20. For 5/10 it depends on the table. There's little formulaic about tough games as many of the lines are read-dependent.

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Maybe I'll give it another shot but I was pretty turned off by the "Here is a 40 page dump of hand stats from Poker Tracker. These hands made money, so these are the hand you should play" approach to many of the topics.

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IT was more of an - "this is how we determined our starting ranges approach, and you can do yours the same way if you want. If you choose to do so, we have provided our data for comparison".

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Stox, that's not entirely true though.

Your hand range (or the hand range of the player data you are using) was determined before the data existed. You may have used the data to create the hand ranges that you provide in the book but in reality the hand ranges that you personally use, or have used in the past, existed before the data.

uDevil · #12 08-09-2007, 08:24 PM

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Not to HJ this thread but do you guys like this book? I got it and was not impressed at all. Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends on what you play. I found it's pretty good for 10/20. For 5/10 it depends on the table. There's little formulaic about tough games as many of the lines are read-dependent.

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Maybe I'll give it another shot but I was pretty turned off by the "Here is a 40 page dump of hand stats from Poker Tracker. These hands made money, so these are the hand you should play" approach to many of the topics.

[/ QUOTE ]

IT was more of an - "this is how we determined our starting ranges approach, and you can do yours the same way if you want. If you choose to do so, we have provided our data for comparison".

[/ QUOTE ]

Stox, that's not entirely true though.

Your hand range (or the hand range of the player data you are using) was determined before the data existed. You may have used the data to create the hand ranges that you provide in the book but in reality the hand ranges that you personally use, or have used in the past, existed before the data.

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And I thought I was nitty! Clearly it's an iterative process. The book does a good job of describing how to do the process-- that is the particular value of this book.

MarkD · #13 08-09-2007, 08:50 PM

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Not to HJ this thread but do you guys like this book? I got it and was not impressed at all. Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends on what you play. I found it's pretty good for 10/20. For 5/10 it depends on the table. There's little formulaic about tough games as many of the lines are read-dependent.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe I'll give it another shot but I was pretty turned off by the "Here is a 40 page dump of hand stats from Poker Tracker. These hands made money, so these are the hand you should play" approach to many of the topics.

[/ QUOTE ]

IT was more of an - "this is how we determined our starting ranges approach, and you can do yours the same way if you want. If you choose to do so, we have provided our data for comparison".

[/ QUOTE ]

Stox, that's not entirely true though.

Your hand range (or the hand range of the player data you are using) was determined before the data existed. You may have used the data to create the hand ranges that you provide in the book but in reality the hand ranges that you personally use, or have used in the past, existed before the data.

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And I thought I was nitty! Clearly it's an iterative process. The book does a good job of describing how to do the process-- that is the particular value of this book.

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I know, and was also quite aware of how nitty it was.

stoxtrader · #14 08-09-2007, 10:14 PM

markD -

When I say it is how we determined our starting ranges - I meant that We (geoff and I), determined our "suggested default openers for the purposes of this book".

"stoxtrader's opening hand range" does not exist in the book. The whole point was to show the process but also to maybe create a baseline ppl can compare ranges against.

yes, the player's whose data we used will be continually reviewing and revising the hands around the margin and yes, they had to start somewhere. Too bad nobody did what we did for them!

jeffnc · #15 08-10-2007, 09:15 AM

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Maybe I'll give it another shot but I was pretty turned off by the "Here is a 40 page dump of hand stats from Poker Tracker. These hands made money, so these are the hand you should play" approach to many of the topics.

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Just ignore that stuff. It's there as a reference to
a) compare your stats with theirs
b) back up their recommendations for profitable decisions

Skip the tables, read the text and just assume it's correct.

jeffnc · #16 08-10-2007, 09:17 AM

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I think it's the second best book ever written on limit hold'em (behind SSH). And I think the gap between 2nd and 3rd is fairly large.

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Actually, ITH is more applicable to a much wider variety of games than either SSH or WTHG, and ITH stays relevant for online play, for example, while SSH has lost a lot of relevancy there (which is not an argument against the quality of the book.)

binions · #17 08-10-2007, 09:55 AM

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I think it's the second best book ever written on limit hold'em (behind SSH). And I think the gap between 2nd and 3rd is fairly large.

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Actually, ITH is more applicable to a much wider variety of games than either SSH or WTHG, and ITH stays relevant for online play, for example, while SSH has lost a lot of relevancy there (which is not an argument against the quality of the book.)

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There are plenty of excellent limit holdem books.

Now that 6max has been addressed, I am not sure how much more demand there is for limit holdem books, although I will want to read Fromm & Zee's book of course.

Tournament holdem has also now been explored to death. The SNG book completed the realm.

NL cash game holdem is finally getting proper coverage. Can't wait for PNLV2 and the HOH cash game series.

Topics that I feel are not fully explored and could be ripe areas for a new book:

Pot Limit Omaha
Pot Limit Holdem
6max big bet holdem and omaha
PLO8

With:

1. So many excellent books available now, and
2. The marked increase of poker coaching . . .

I would not be surprised to see a Poker College open its doors in the next few years. It would be like a trade school or a junior college. Required courses would include poker dealing so the graduates would have a skill to fall back on in hard times.

How about 2+2 University?

dirty banana2007 · #18 08-10-2007, 10:22 AM

What games does WTHG cover? i.e what games does he mean by tough?

As for other limit books, i would like to see one covering limit tournaments and SNG's (i know there is a chapter on limit tournaments in the Full tilt book.)and i think there is always room for a good Q+A book.

dirty banana2007 · #19 08-10-2007, 03:12 PM

Does it cover heads up play?

Bill Haywood · #20 08-19-2007, 04:48 PM

STOX:

Sorry if this has come up already, but I'm finding quite a few contradictions in your starting hands recommendations. Things like K5s listed as a minimum in the cutoff, but in the discussion of stealing, the minimum is K7s, even though steal ranges are presumably wider.

Also for a future printing: the tables of hands would be much easier to read if the headings were included on each page, rather than only at the beginning of a table.