Review, Advanced Limit Holdem Strategy (Tanenbaum)

[Mason Malmuth]

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one example he gave is to three bet from the cutoff with Q9s against a tight, losing frustrated player who had raised from his right.

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This seems to be an example of trying to have it both ways. If the player is tight, then three betting with Q9s is clearly wrong. If it's a knowledegeable player who knows to loosen up on his first in raises from late position, then this play becomes borderline. If it is someone who is frustrated, then he may clearly be playing too many hands and this reraise becomes clearly correct.

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Barry hit a 9 on fourth street and won a pot and showing the hand got other players to view him as foolish and lucky.

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This looks a little results oriented to me. Also, the majority of the time you three bet with a hand like this you don't make anything and you do want your opponent to fold. So showing your hand to convince your opponents that you're lucky and foolish is just bad advice to me especially since you will now be teaching your opponents to correctly call you down with hands that you would prefer them to fold.

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He points out that isolating a predictable player in position will allow him to win that pot almost all the time but creates the illusion of action for players who don't understand how sophisticated the play really is.

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First off, we wrote this play up almost 20 years ago with the original release of HPFAP. Second, notice that the play really didn't work so well since his opponent did not fold on the flop and that he had to catch a nine on the turn to win it. Notice that this contradicts "He points out that isolating a predictable player in position will allow him to win that pot almost all the time."

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He also talks about making other "situational" raises like raising with JT suited once 4 or more players are in or raising with a small pair once 5 or more players are in to tie those players to the pot with overcards when you hit your sets.

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Again, these plays were first written up almost 20 years ago when HPFAP was first released.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Adman]

Mason makes some great points here and what he's saying does seem to refute to some extent the validity of Tanenbaum's assertions.

TT, given the lively discussion we had previously concerning the new D&B shorthanded book, I am very interested to hear your opinions on it since I noticed earlier in this thread you have since read it. Please comment?

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Adman:

Again I have not yet read this book and probably shouldn't comment (much) on it until that happens. I now hope to get to it sooner rather than later (as originally planned), and when I do, even though my formal review won't appear here, everyone will quickly find out what my gereral opinon is.

Best wishes,
Mason

[SenecaJim]

Mason, Where will your official review appear?

[Cactus Jack]

First, Bear is talking about middle-stakes, not small stakes, so that has to be kept in mind. Second, the Illusion of Action that he talks about is for making more money when you have an image that is too tight. If they fold when you raise, then your tight image may be working against you. By making Illusion of Action plays, which aren't really that loose but may appear to be loose, you'll make more on your very good hands. Mostly it's opening your hand range and making thin raises and reraises in position against certain opponents, when the entire table is watching. He also tries to create an image with his table demeanor, even though he doesn't write about that in his book.

Much of the book is as much mind-set as pure strategy. As TT said well, his audience is made up of weak-tights who aren't aggressive enough. Barry is trying to get them out of their comfort zones. Most 2+2ers don't need it, obviously, but we aren't his target audience. Most of us already play an attacking, aggressive game like he wants his readers to play.

His goal is to make your opponents become predictable as you become unpredictable to them. In this, I think he does it well.

It's a very good book, and I think the world of the poker E.F. Hutton. He's one of my very favorite people. Even if I didn't know him, I'd be impressed with the book. It's a good read. I think also you'll give it a good review, too, Mason. I look forward to it.

CJ

ps--Barry is going to be on my show in the next week or so. I'll keep an eye on this thread for things to ask him.

[Shandrax]

When I read about "illusion of action", I get reminded of John Fox "Play Poker, Quit Work and Sleep Till Noon" where he talks about a guy named ASQ (p.58-59) who intentionally makes a few suboptimal plays to make others believe that he is a fish, so they do everything they can to get into a game with him.