Quote:
Originally Posted by Mason Malmuth
Hi Howard:
First, thanks for the positive review. It's much appreciated.
Second, if you would like to write a much longer review, feel free to do so. I also feel that's it's important to get some of the ideas that the book contains out to more in the poker community. This is especially so since much of what has become recently available under the heading of "Poker Psychology" or "Mental Coaching" is, in my opinion, extremely inaccurate.
Best wishes,
Mason
You're welcome, Mason, but I think that I'll leave it as it is (I marked at least a dozen pages to address) and will answer questions if I think that I can be helpful. Many people who read it are going to wonder a lot about some of what you write but to the careful reader it should be clear. For example you say that being tired shouldn't matter much and I can just see the expressions on the faces of the reader who strongly disagrees and they may not notice that you soften that later on by acknowledging that there's such a thing as 'too tired.' Many will pass over that and not get the point.
I know that you don't think much of the current crop of poker psychology books and I don't find them very helpful myself. I've got Tendler's book (which you think is good, iirc) sitting half read on my shelf. I've read Tommy Angelo's Elements of Poker bec it was so highly touted and liked much of it except for the small bits of strat talk (I love you Tommy but, damn, you are a nit).
Let people read your book and come here to talk about it if they want to but I'll advise them again: If you think 'wtf?' at any point, read on. Read on w/ what it would mean if you took 'Understand poker better' and applied it to what you might reject out of hand.
ETA: I'll add a couple of further thoughts: Much of what I HAVE read in the poker psych books, and in the psych forum on here bring up anger issues and entitlement issues. Some people will never get over their anger issues bec they bring them w/ them wherever they go. If it only happens at the tables then they don't understand poker and they certainly don't love it. They are getting angry at facts, a silly thing. How can anybody get angry about a fact? If a person can't understand that something happens bec it's SUPPOSED and even MUST happen there is little help for them except your basic cure. The same goes for entitlement issues as if some player thinks he's so damn good that he should never lose, esp to the fish. And how I hate that term, 'fish.' So many of the 'fish' are extremely wealthy and they can play poker as stupidly as they want bec the money is like lint in their pockets. Yet so many players think of them a suckers (btw, the page on Sucker Privileges was very funny and I'm going to shamelessly steal that line). And here's an example: Years ago there was an absolutely terrible player in an 08 game that I sometimes played. He was one of the worst I've ever seen. Then one day somebody told me that 'He owns half of Chicago.' lololol, there's a 'sucker for you.'
I could go on but by the time I'm finished I'll have written my own book.
Last edited by Howard Beale; 02-29-2016 at 10:14 PM.