Phil Gordon on Malmuth and Sklansky

[*TT*]

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I remember the Fancy Play Syndrome from the SS2 section on LHE by Jennifer Harman. Dunno whom she got it from.

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Mike Caro used the term at least 10 years ago. Don't know if he coined it, but a lot of people attribute it to him.

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Lots of people think Mike Caro is a retarded hack columnist, but I don't see people attributing retardation to Mike Caro. He really gets credit for way too much... his contribution to poker knowlege isn't as great as he sells it to be. As time goes on we will look back at Caro and put him in a similar class as other poker greats like Ken Warren and Lou Krieger.

PS: yes, I am cranky today [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[Crazy Porto]

phil gordon is annoying me more then phil hellmuth

[Point Point]

I have a Mike Caro book in front of me called the Fundamental Secrets of Poker dated 1988. Here is a quote:

"Tip #17. Ego Problem. Many skilled players suffer from FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome). They'd rather impress weak opponents with unexpected plays than beat them with the obvious winning strategy. Avoid FPS"

[phydaux]

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He really gets credit for way too much... his contribution to poker knowlege isn't as great as he sells it to be. As time goes on we will look back at Caro and put him in a similar class as other poker greats like Ken Warren and Lou Krieger.

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Hollywood portrays poker as being 100% about two things - Outragous bluffs and miniscule tells that only highly experienced voodoo masters can understand.

Mike has played on this general misunderstanding with his "Tells and Poker Psychology" books, videos and seminars.

Now, I don't want to bust Mike's balls too hard. Mike is an old 5 card draw player from back in the day when 5 card draw was the only legal game in the California card rooms. With no flop or board cards and only two rounds of betting, 5 card draw doesn't offer a whole lot of information to the expert player for him to use in hand reading. So if you can't read the hand, then you have to read the player. By focusing on tells and psychology, Mike was doing the best he could with what he had to work with.

Then stud killed draw, and hold'em killed stud. Good players have more information to work with in putting their opponent on a range of hands, even when playing on the internet. But new players still buy Mike's books & videos because Hollywood still pushes the poker myth rather than poker reality.

[Dima2000123]

I think the keyword in Gordon's sentence is "just". Once you understand what he means by "just", you'll know that he's not taking a shot at Malmuth or Sklansky at all.

[PequDios]

It's okay, I get where he is coming from.

[recondite7]

Why does Phil Gordon think he is an elite poker player? His results aren't that great for the number of tournies he has entered and it seems that most top pros don't respect his game at all.

[chopchoi]

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Also it seems to me that 2+2'ers generally player hate Phil Gordon...

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[daveT]

Thanks TT, you said what has been rattling in my mind for a year now. I remember sitting at 9/18 and one person didn't know who Caro was, and we all laughed at him. But to think of it, I never liked what he wrote, I never made it out of the aisle of Borders with any of his books except for "Tells," which has collected dust.

[*TT*]

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Also it seems to me that 2+2'ers generally player hate Phil Gordon...

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the guy has a personality of a 75 year old nit at times, and at other times he is quite affable; problem is he is always the 75 year old nit at precisely the wrong times. If you watched the WSOP final table video feed his reporting wasn't 1/2 bad and he was quite entertaining; but he was incredibly sour. He made Helmuth look really good (not an easy thing to do on TV, in real life he is a big goofball), embarrassed himself by calling the players at the final table idiots and morons at various times, and other foot in mouth gaffs that made him come across like a horse's axx. Its really unfortunate, he acts as if the world owes him respect at the wrong times... perhaps if he got a personality coach we might begin to like him better. One thing is for sure, he knows he is not liked as a person on 2+2.