psychology of poker

[ohio]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't comment on the strat advice because it has been a long time since I looked at it. I don't think it had any, and I doubt Mason and co. would allow blatant inaccuracies go to print, especially since this book is geared toward a limit player, their expertise.

[/ QUOTE ]

if the book doesnt contain strategy advice then why is sklansky listed as its strategy consultant? schoonmaker, at times anyway, seems to think the book contains strategy advice:

[ QUOTE ]
Your local [tennis] pro will watch the way you play, then tell you how to improve both your strokes and your strategy. This book will do exactly the same thing for your poker. (P. 2.)

[/ QUOTE ]

to his credit, schoonmaker doesnt claim to be a strategy expert.


[ QUOTE ]
(I doubt it says an 80% vpip is tight)

[/ QUOTE ]

you are right that it doesnt specifically say a player seeing 80% of the flops is tight. but thats the conclusion readers should reach if the rest of the table is seeing 90% of the flops...assuming you take schoonmaker's advice:

[ QUOTE ]
The average player varies from game to game, and the definition of the more extreme types should be adjusted accordingly. For example, if about half of the players in a game call on third street (in stud) or before the flop in hold 'em or Omaha), then the average player (on looseness) is someone who calls about half the time. If more or less players call, then the average and all other ratings must be adjusted upward or downward. (Pp. 78-79.)

[/ QUOTE ]

and

[ QUOTE ]
*Compare people to your usual game, not to some idea of how they "should" play.* If, for example, about half of the players see the flop in your hold 'em game, someone who sees about half the flops would be rated "5" [average] on the loose/tight dimension. You might think that only three people should see the flop, but you have to adjust to the players in your own game, not in some ideal one. (P. 82.)

[/ QUOTE ]

if schoonmaker had actually followed his advice to its logical conclusion, i hope he, malmuth, and sklansky all would have realized it was blatantly wrong. looseness and tightness shouldnt be measured relative to the rest of the table.

[daveT]

[ QUOTE ]
if schoonmaker had actually followed his advice to its logical conclusion, i hope he, malmuth, and sklansky all would have realized it was blatantly wrong. looseness and tightness shouldnt be measured relative to the rest of the table.

[/ QUOTE ]

According to TOP and SSHE, the amount of hands, and how you play them are based on several factors, including: The Size of the Ante.

If you are playing a large Ante game, then it is mathematically better for you to play more hands, as you are getting better immediate odds, implied odds, and better late street odds to draw.

I know you are going to argue that Hold'em has no ante except in tournament play. However, if you are playing in a game with 90% of the people seeing the flop, then your effective ante is going to be 9 SBs. You are now receiving 10-1 break even odds on your hand. If you are in the small blind, then you are receiving 19-1 break even odds in your hand.

Compare to a game with two players limping. You are now receiving 3-1 immediate odds.

With that conclusion, you are supposed to play looser.

However, the above has no relevance to what you are questioning, but I am assuming that is where you are stuck.

What Dr. Al is observing is that some players play TIGHTER THAN AVERAGE. If you sit at a table with every one seeing 70% of the flop. Then a tight player would only be seeing half the flops. I think that POP only wants to explain why this player is not willing to play looser, why this player is not playing more aggressive, why this player is not playing tighter, etc. This player probably thinks he is playing correctly because he read somewhere that he is supposed to play tight, although he is playing incorrectly. The meat of the book is trying to describe why this player is playing tighter than the rest. I am not sure how deep it goes, but I remember that Dr Al gives advice on how this player can improve, and why this player plays an inhibited game.

The book is broken down into four groups. TAG, LAG, TAP, LAP. He talks about what each player does, why they do it, and then makes suggestions to how each can help there own game.

I know I already stated that I don't like this book, but any perceived strategy advice is not the blame. I still don't understand how the two excerpts you gave are talking about strategy.

[ohio]

[ QUOTE ]
I know I already stated that I don't like this book, but any perceived strategy advice is not the blame. I still don't understand how the two excerpts you gave are talking about strategy.

[/ QUOTE ]

you might want to check out this thread. it discusses the opposite situation: when you are in a game full of rocks and you play only slightly looser.

[ QUOTE ]
Let's consider an extreme scenario, just to make the flaws of this approach very obvious. Suppose you are in your usual game at the local VFW, where all your opponents are granite rocks. Outside of the big blind, nobody calls more than five percent of the time. Bets or raises are rarer than a kind word about "them damn draft dodgers."


As the only exception, you see the flop with your big blind and ten percent of your other hands. You also bet or raise about ten percent of the time.


According to Schoonmaker, you're a maniac. You'll lose lots of money "because poker rewards patience, discipline, and *selective* aggression, while you are impatient, undisciplined, and *promiscuously* aggressive." (P. 137.)


You're probably addicted to the action (p. 141), but if you can change, you should calm down, tighten up, and reduce your aggression. "Nothing will improve your game faster than tightening up." (P. 146.) Being selectively aggressive, though, "is almost as important as tightening up." (P. 146.)

[/ QUOTE ]

as you can see, schoonmaker is giving strategy advice: calm down, tighten up, reduce your aggression. the problem is its exactly the wrong advice. just because you're looser and more aggressive than the rest of the table, that doesnt necessarily make you a loose-aggressive "maniac".

in this case, you're still an overly tight-passive player. instead of tightening up, you need to loosen up. instead of reducing your aggression, you need to increase it.

[daveT]

You are reading reviews where people are nit-picking. That example is beyond my comprehension. It is not comparable to the sentence the critic is trying to debunk.

Against rocks you must adjust accordingly. Stealing antes is going to be your focus, but as Schoonmaker is saying, you must be patient, disciplined and selective of your spots. There is nothing wrong with what Schoonmaker has written. If I use context the way this reviewer does, I can make TOP look like a roll of toilet paper.

At the beginning, Schoonmaker says that he learned to play poker to observe players. He said that he was a winning small stakes live player. It is doubtful that the average Vegas 2/4 game looks like the VFW picnic you describe.

If you learn to take the sentence you do not seem to like, and take the time to understand it, you will see the wisdom of it. Although you may read Stox and see a bunch of loose plays and call downs, they are all based in patience, discipline and *selective aggression.

In final, I think that this book would be good for you. It seems like you need to learn how to balance different concepts and learn how to apply them .You are taking great examples and smearing them based on what, I assume, are losing player's opinions.

[pa3lsvt]

[ QUOTE ]
The book is broken down into four groups. TAG, LAG, TAP, LAP.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, its:

TAP - Tight Aggressive Player
LAP - Loose Aggressive Player
TPP - Tight Passive Player
LPP - Loose Passive Player

The people who are panning the book are reading it like I read Math textbooks in college (and most 2+2 strategy books are like math textbooks). This one is more like a Sociology textbook - it's general value is greater than the sum of every individual piece of information.

This book is for people who have a decent grasp of the technical strategy fundamentals and need to improve their ability to determine why their opponents make the incorrect plays they do - to eventually do a better job of reading bad players' hands.

[Red_Diamond]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
general consensus was that it was a worthless read.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

I just completed reading it this weekend. It is not my hobby to insult 2+2 or its writers, but I will not hold back the warning to my friends to not waste their time or winnings on this book.

I don't know, I assume i expected something along the lines of levels of order thinking, or combating psychological wars in tuff poker games. Perhaps a few indepth chapters on the whole, 'He's thinking what I'm thinking what he's thinking...' sort of thing. Or at least something new...

Unfortunatly it was rather a simplistic "Rate what kind of of the 4 possible players you are." And then, a repeat of what is good/bad about that style.

ARggg, this is really rather basic. Even if there was a part II book to this primer book, I don't think I could pick it up now.

[deacsoft]

I think it's a bit unfair for you to say, "I will not hold back the warning to my friends to not waste their time or winnings on this book" given the circumstances you listed.

Your post reads like you had an assumed idea of what the book should be about before you read it. Then you read it and found out that it was not about what you thought it should be. Then you didn't like it.

[ohio]

[ QUOTE ]
If you learn to take the sentence you do not seem to like, and take the time to understand it, you will see the wisdom of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

apparently i understand the sentence better than you do. it says you should gauge how loose or how tight a player by the looseness/tightness of the other players at that table. that is absurd and pointing that out is hardly nit-picking. if you think/play that way, you'll lose lots of money at poker.

[ QUOTE ]
It is doubtful that the average Vegas 2/4 game looks like the VFW picnic you describe.

[/ QUOTE ]

i never said it the average game was like the described game. the described game is an extreme example used to illustrate the dangers of thinking about poker in the way schoonmaker suggests. if you understand the dangers of playing in the described game then you stand a better chance of understanding the dangers of schoonmaker's bad advice.

[ QUOTE ]
In final, I think that this book would be good for you. It seems like you need to learn how to balance different concepts and learn how to apply them .You are taking great examples and smearing them based on what, I assume, are losing player's opinions.

[/ QUOTE ]

thanks, but i'll go with the general consensus and skip this book.

[Albert Moulton]

[ QUOTE ]
thanks, but i'll go with the general consensus and skip this book.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's too bad. I thought it was the best source of informaiton on why people play the way they do despite the fact that both you know and they know that they lose money over the long run when they play that way. It's one thing to know that a guy is loose/passive, or loose/aggressive, or tight/passive, or tight/aggressivebut, but it's another (and better) thing to understand why he plays that way and how you can spot it, and profit from it.

All the "strategy" complaints are silly. It's not a strategy book. Any strategy information is only used to explain a point in the text. Basically, the book contends that tight/aggressive play with the intent to make money by maximizing EV is the best style of play. LDO. But people still play those other styles in live games (badly) all the time. And TA does not equal weak-tight.

As I said earlier, I play live mostly. And just about everything he says still has relevance in the live games that I play.

Is it common sense stuff? Maybe. But I learned a lot. I think it's a great read for an intermediate player trying to understand via the quizes what motivates him to play poker, and what motivates many of the other people that he's in the game with.

[daveT]

Red Diamond has a legitimate complaint. When we plunk down $30 for a 2+2 book, we have a certain expectation in quality. We expect something ground-breaking, new, and thought-provoking. This is where POP falls flat on it's face. It is for this reason that winners of poker moneys don't like this book.