A must read post about "bad" poker books.

[Easy E]

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Hi Barron:

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Would you have been better off if you hadn't read it when you didn't know any better?

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I think this is a real key point. The idea that figuring out the errors in a book has value just can't be true for a large proportion of the people the book is directed at. Also, it's also possible that some intermediate type players will find errors when they are not there. So it's really very important that the author make sure that his book is extremely accurate or else (in my opinion) they risk doing a significant disservice to those who read and perhaps study their book and apply the suggested techniques.

Best wishes,
Mason

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Here's a question- if it comes down to a choice between NOT reading a particular book (let's pick WLLHE, ver 1, shall we?) and learning poker, or starting with WLLHE and unlearning errors....

Which is +EV for most average poker players?

[BarronVangorToth]

I agree - because it was a while before I realized that 2+2 was where it's at, and I'm sure others had that problem.

Which is why it's important for those people that know the difference to turn their friends onto these books rather than let them languish in the tar pits.

My aforementioned friend from earlier in this thread has a huge edge over someone walking in blind as the entirety of her poker reading has thusfar been Getting Started in Hold 'em. She's 2-for-2 at the $1-$2 NL game at Foxwoods (yeah, yeah, small sample size, yeah yeah) and the next book she's going to read is Small Stakes Hold 'em.

Years ago it seemed far fewer were even remotely educated about poker. Nowadays, people can get help and ask around before they get bogged down -- especially with sooooooooo much flotsam being produced.

[Nate.]

Deacsoft et al. --

I disagree strongly with Deacsoft's OP and many of the replies.

I think we can all agree that a reasoned, careful description of why a book is bad and of the analogous good advice is of much higher value than a "burn it" response. The idea, however, that any book or just about any book is good because you can think about it for yourself, critically, is dangerous and misguided.

There are several reasons for this. One stems from the fact that poker is difficult (which is why we read books in the first place); correct plays can be subtle. That is, in a mathematics text a skilled reader can be expected to find flaws in a proof; in a poker text we often need to take the author's word for it if we don't want to spend tons of time calculating the EV of various plays. A good example is Sklansky's discussion of semibluffing in HEPFAP. Take the recommendation of betting into a few opponents with bottom pair top kicker on a ragged board when you're in the blind. He says it's a profitable play and I believe him (at least, in certain kinds of games). What does it mean to "believe him"?

-I think that if I estimated likely holdings, opponents' reactions with them, and future action, betting would have a higher EV than any other option. Note that this calculation would be very difficult.
-I think that studying these sorts of examples fosters a state of mind in which other profitable plays can be found. I think that this semibluff, recommended by an expert amid expert justification, is a good thing to know. Note that Sklansky does not axiomatically derive the EV of every option under some set of axioms.

So my belief that a player would get better at poker for having read that chapter seems justified. Now let's pretend that Sklansky did not advocate semibluffing, or at least not all the semibluffing he recommends in the book. Here's what happens in some parallel universe:

-The intelligent but uninformed reader immediately calculates the EV of every possible move and notices the error. [This seems very improbable.]
-The intelligent but uninformed reader sits down and does some calculations. These take a very long time. [Imagine doing this whenever you came across a piece of poker advice.]
-The intelligent but uninformed reader is somewhat skeptical, or maybe just intrigued, and goes to the 2+2 Forums to seek advice. [This is a good option, but why not just play a while and post hands? Also, is our reader going to do this for every piece of advice?]

In the world of the OP, there would be merit to purchasing poker strategy statements randomly generated by a computer (not a poker computer, just a computer that could string sentences together). The reader, so the theory goes, would value so much from the mere consideration of poker-related sentences that there would be a significant amount of value. This example is extreme but I've read passages of Ken Warren in which I would have expected a random computer to do better. (That is, if you randomly inserted "bad" for "good", etc., by flipping a coin, the resulting advice would be expected to be more accurate than the original.)

A final point, perhaps the most important one, is that of fostering a proper framework for thinking about the game. When Sklansky describes some correct semibluffs the careful reader will learn about equity and find *other* profitable plays. When Warren suggests almost never raising AK before the flop because it's just a drawing hand, the uninformed reader might find a whole slew of unprofitable plays, and will be encouraged to group hands into artificial categories in lieu of learning about equity and other important concepts.

Similar examples can be found in any academic discipline. Examining bad poetry can be instructive, but certainly students of poetry have long found it best to focus mainly on the greats. Examining flawed math proofs can be constructive, but good math students tend to focus on
good math books. Remember that a good math book not only presents correct information but presents an elegant framework for thinking about the mathematics in question. (Also remember that much poker writing these days is much more inaccurate and poorly written than the worst math texts on the market.)

While it might be true that reading bad poker books can help you understand bad players, it is silly to think that this is a good reason to read bad poker books. One reason is that the mistake must not only exist, but be exploited, and bad books are not going to give instructions for exploiting themselves (though an intelligent reader could often figure out how). Another reason is that any good book implicitly describes tons of bad advice, simply because an intelligent reader can examine the good advice, figure out how it arises from good premises, and change the premises so that the advice changes. The resulting advice will be bad, and the reader will be able to figure out why it is bad. Another matter is that anyone in the poker community is exposed to an avalanche of bad information, just because it permeates the literature, the forums, and the chatter around live poker tables. I would find it remarkable if anyone who values his time would spend much of it reading bad poker books to find out how bad poker players think.

Players have long improved by analyzing bad poker plays and bad poker ideas. But it is simply ridiculous to think that a bad poker book in the hands of an intelligent, careful reader will have anywhere near the positive impact that a good book will. Sometimes posters here will post "burn it"; I'd rather they posted something more substantive, but I'd also rather El Diablo post more in-depth strategy when he responds to a hand post with a three-word response such as "Checkraise the turn." It doesn't mean that checkraising the turn is wrong, and it doesn't mean that a book is worth the time or money, or that it's anything other than barely-better-than-random and sometimes worse-than-random advice, poorly presented and hastily thrown onto shelves. We should recognize these books for what they are and spend our time reading and discussing better ones.

--Nate

[deacsoft]

Let me begin by saying I agree with your nearly your entire post. The fact that you "disagree strongly with" mine seems a bit puzzeling to me. The way I see it, the only concepts you disagree with are ones I never advocated in the first place.
Examples:
-I never stated that they should be focused on more, as much, or even a 1/4 as much as solid books.
-I never said a reader would gain as much from reading an incorrectly written book as they would from reading a correctly written book. I did say that understanding why certain points is a book are incorrect could teach them as much as those which are correct.
-(Although not directly refered to in your post but in many others) I never stated that this would be something for beginners to do. I did say that if it were the case other posters should respond with helpful information. Obviously if you're just starting out you do not know good information from bad. I never stated that everyone should do this.

Perhaps, in future posts such as this I should just write them in essay format and put the thesis in bold print. Hopefully this could aid the prevention of others putting words in my mouth or in my writing.
Example (for this thread):
There are things that a player can learn from "bad" poker books that would lead to them not being worthless.
Example 2 (for those who still don't get it):
There is some value in reading bad poker books. If there is some value they obviously could not be wothless. So stop saying that they are worthless.

There. That's it. Pretty simple.

[Nate.]

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I’m continually seeing posts stating that people should “unlearn”, “throw out”, “never read”, “burn”, “use as toilet paper”, and etc, etc when responding to the value of different poker books. These statements are about as ignorant as still believing the world is flat.

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As long as the comments you put in quotes are meant hyperbolically, I think they're far from believing the world is flat. I certainly think that many would benefit from unlearning Ken Warren.

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These books offer a ton of information and can aid poker players in many facets of the game.

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I'd disagree here except if you mean that if a player would benefit from sitting down and carefully constructing analyses of why they're wrong. I'm a serious student of poker and I read Play Poker Like The Pros a bunch of times and honestly, it's drivel, and what little precise commentary there is tends to be wrong or obvious. To say that it has a lot to offer is misleading, I think.

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People are going to read these books containing flawed information and they’re going to bring that style to the table.

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Most bad players are just tourists or megatilters or whatever; I've spent a lot of time figuring out why bad players are bad and very very infrequently do I think "aha! They misunderstand concept X as presented in book Y!" Now, some book misconceptions manifest themselves frequently in bad players, but like I said you get so much bad poker information unintentionally these days that even if you decided to further your poker education by intentionally surrounding yourself with deeply flawed advice -- which I wouldn't recommend doing -- you wouldn't need to buy books to do it.

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In short, by posting garbage like “burn it” you’re not doing anything to help the learning environment. Therefore, it’s not needed here.

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I'd much rather see a careful analysis of a book than "burn it." But just as I'd slightly prefer a great player dash off a "checkraise the turn" reply than not write anything, I slightly prefer a knowledgable poster to dash off "this book sucks" if that information was missing or underemphasized in the thread. I'd like to think I'm one that can be trusted; if I say a book sucks there's a very good chance it does, though I usually enjoy the process of detailing the ways in which it sucks and have never made such a post.

Anyway, I'm all for improving post quality in the forum. Thanks for your moderating efforts.

[deacsoft]

Bravo! I believe that through our combined thoughs (along with a few other posts) we've supplied the forum with a pretty good understanding on this topic.

I think I now may be able to move on to the next thing that is driving me crazy in this forum. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Nate.]

All right, all right. I'm looking forward to it.

[adios]

Get the report and look at the charts. Anyone who follows the recommendations from the chart in limit play will be calling raises with a lot of dominated hands pre-flop.