Review: Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games by Stox/Zobags

[Gelford]

And because you can multitable, so there is there big'ish money to be made playing lots of tables at small'ish stakes.

[Piers]

It is quite disjointed in places. With the same subject being covered in different places, with no cross-reference and sometimes with differing advice. Almost as if different parts of the book might have been written by different people, who have had the same rough ideas but have not matched their thoughts together exactly. Its not a problem to a sufficiently sophisticated reader, but will confuse many others (no objections to that [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img])

The authors seem to take three approaches to giving pre flop ranges. Empirical evidence, hot and cold equity simulations and making an intelligent guess based on everything else. Which can in principle give three different answers, not really a problem I guess.

Interesting point about ducks.

Open fold 22 in the small blind page 69. Open raise 22 in button and cut off page 12. Don’t know, maybe they are correct.

Overall, it has overtaken SSH and HOH as the book I most wish had not been published.

[malorum]

[ QUOTE ]

Open fold 22 in the small blind page 69. Open raise 22 in button and cut off page 12. Don’t know, maybe they are correct.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's about how cheaply you can get to the river against the BB when your probably ahead. I can think of a few lines against some BB players that would make 22 hard to play out of position.

I'm not saying Stox is right here but there is food for thought in this advice.

I'm working on a HU lines to the river guide (there is no BCO for poker yet), don't think I'll publish it tho.

[malorum]

[ QUOTE ]


1: The first group of data is that of a high stakes shorthanded player with 300K+ hands at levels between 50/100 and 500/1000. His winrate is .73BB/100


[/ QUOTE ]

Thats a very broad range of limits. I'm not sure how meaningful the winrate is with such a mix of limits.
I'd be asking how many hands at which limits, and how shorthanded.

[ QUOTE ]

2: The second set of hands is drawn from a mid-stakes shorthanded player who draws from 430K hands from levels between 10/20 and 100/200 and shows a winrate of .04BB/100.


[/ QUOTE ]
Again the range is over a factor of 10.

so its like a low limit player mixing his results for 1/2 2/4 3/6 5/10 and 10/20.
That said 0.04BB is not a good win-rate shorthanded (6 max)
6max rates in excess of 1BB/100 are acheivable in low and middle limit, and if you play much shorter you can do much much better than this, but only if you select your opponents carefully.
I would rather make 0.5BB/100 at 5/10 than 0.04 at 50/100


[ QUOTE ]


The third set of hands is drawn from a mid-stakes full ring player who has just short of 700K hands at limits between 10/20 and 100/200 and wins at a .55BB/100.

[/ QUOTE ]

Player distributions and therefore game texture change dramatically at certain limits depending on the site and bonus/rakeback structures.

For example 3/6 and 5/10 games may play very differently to 1/2 and 2/4 and 10/20 through 20/40 tends to confront you with tougher tricky players, 30/60 again often plays very differently.

I remember using stat king many years ago and the picture of sklansky warning you not to mix your limit results......

[malorum]

[ QUOTE ]
Overall, it has overtaken SSH and HOH as the book I most wish had not been published.

[/ QUOTE ]

[stoxtrader]

I'm not going to comment on the winrates too much because it's not worth a big discussion, but I will say this. It is my opinion that if the winrates were higher OR lower, the text/conclusions/analysis would not suffer in either case. Our biggest internal worry was sample size, NOT winrate total.

I guess it's human nature to talk about money/winrates, but for our purposes with the text, higher winrate did not mean better book. I'm curious if anyone disagrees, and if so, why.

[Heisenb3rg]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not going to comment on the winrates too much because it's not worth a big discussion, but I will say this. It is my opinion that if the winrates were higher OR lower, the text/conclusions/analysis would not suffer in either case. Our biggest internal worry was sample size, NOT winrate total.

I guess it's human nature to talk about money/winrates, but for our purposes with the text, higher winrate did not mean better book. I'm curious if anyone disagrees, and if so, why.

[/ QUOTE ]

It has nothing to do with the usefulness of the advice itself.

It has to do with the psychology of the reader understanding the advice. Shaping the lens at which they view your material.

People expect solid advice from a solid pro.

If you've proven that by implementing your ideas, you've achieved some sick win rate. People are going to open their mind as wide as possible to these "winning" ideas.

For example It's not common to disagree with something you read in the poker book using a limited/flawed perspective.

If the author who proposed the idea skills were under question, a reader disagreeing with this idea can then assume that the author is just incorrect. Learning little in the process. If they respected the authors word, they are more likely to think harder about the idea. Therefore, they learn more, therefore, the book is more useful.

However, It is a double edged sword . If people never stop to fully understand a concept, but rather mimick it because they respsect the person too much.. This is bad too.

I think the first situation comes up a lot more than the second in poker books, especially given the whole everyone thinks they're better than they really are mentality. There's also a high correlation between poker players and narcissim.

This is just human nature, it's especially true in the sciences. If you've had an idea for a while and einstein came along and told you , you were wrong as well as gave you a complex argument.. How likely would you rethink your idea? If a homeless dude came along and gave you the same argument, would you give it as much merrit?
Assuming of couse you didn't fully understand what they were saying at first.

[fraac]

Or people will be suss to hype and more trustful of downplayed stats. Next level, innit. I really don't think the book will have a problem on this score.

[ QUOTE ]
If people never stop to fully understand a concept, but rather mimick it because they respsect the person too much.. This is bad too.

[/ QUOTE ]
Why is this bad? There is evidence that in many fields, this exact strategy is very successful.

[stoxtrader]

[ QUOTE ]
Or people will be suss to hype and more trustful of downplayed stats. Next level, innit. I really don't think the book will have a problem on this score.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

let's just say that if I thought it added value to the book there could have been additional stats I assume people would find impressive.

[malorum]

Yup I wasn't knocking the usefulness of the book with regard to the win rates. Unfortunately I think the advice given in the book is sound.
I was questioning the usefulness of the set of win rates included, given the broad range of data included.

I'm always interested in win-rates as they reflect the ever changing nature of the game. For example my own win-rates seem to be inversely proportional to the number of players at the table, and I suspect this is the same for many short handed players.