Mine was in pristine condition when I got it and quickly fell apart at the spine. I wouldn't recommend seconds to anyone. The book is poorly bound to begin with.

During the 50% of the time when he's betting , EV=+.5.
During 50% of the time he's checking Y's EV=0.
overall ev=+.25

OK thanks. I'm really not ******ed. Really.

The binding has no bearing on if it "A" or "B" stock. B's are overstock or shipping dinged/minor shelf worn store returns that cant be sold as new anymore.

PM me with your order number or email address for replacement instructions.
Mike

second to that. I handle my books with care. Once read through and then starting re-readin of interesting points. binding is showing early sigins of breaking

This is ofcourse a matter of cost of production <> price. As is the hours spent on proof reading and the level of expertice of reader.

Should the price be higher the potential buyers would be significantly fewer.

I am overjoyed that they MANAGED TO GET THIS BOOK PUBLISHED!! With all of its faults I still feel that this is _BEST_ book available on this subject! I just hope that authors will make a second volume and heed the feedback.

And please do post if you know better

Regarding pringing errors. There is an errata on publishers website. When I compared some of the points i noted that it did not match my print. I can't say if third print is errorfree (Neither did I find any clear mark in the book that would indicate which print it is).

Why buy a math book if you're going to skip the equations? That's like buying Playboy magazine for the articles.

Ok on p124 MOP's "... X always wins when he calls." is not misleading but correct in the special context where player Y has exactly hand y and that is what they meant. So the statement is okay as is.

This is, of course, utterly unlike anyone's experience with, say, books published by 2+2.

Haha!
I actually read it partly and liked it as far as I was able to follow the math roughly which isn't easy at all but probably worth it.

My brother is a math kid and he borrowed it from me to have some sample problems. He doesn't play poker, but he says that some of the equations and calculations are better explained than in his math books. So whatever you use it for it's a good book for motivated non-beginners.

It's so good, it should cost 18,500$, and come in a password protected pdf, which would destroy your computer after reading.

This took me a bit to understand as well. The misunderstanding is that the authors talk about the situation when Y has exactly the threshold value y, not any value < y.
X never calls when it has a value x > y, therefore if Y has exactly y *and* X calls, Y never wins as x must then be < y

sry for the bump but on page 161 it goes to the solution that alpha = (P-1)/(P+1). I think that (P-1)/(P+1) was 1-alpha :/

anybody can help me with that thing? Is the first example in the chapter 15, the full street akq game

thnx

As a mathematician, I strongly suggest the authors using Latex to typeset the book. I guess the book is typed in MS Word which produces really ugly math formulas and I don't want to follow even one page.

As a pokerplayer ... I don't give a ****, the material is more important than layout. (actually as an economist, I still don't care)

As a sometime publishing professional, this is really the production department's call, not the author's.

It's the same as the requirement in those forums "don't post raw hand history, use a converter". The content is the same, but we should try to present it in a nice way. If you see the math formulas in Latex, you will notice the big difference.

Yes, it might be a production requirement, but I don't see why a pdf document should not be accepted.

can any1 help me with this? :J

Oh, good catch. The line that says:

%alpha = P-1 / P+1 toward the bottom of page 161 should instead say:

c = P - 1 / P + 1

(this is the calling frequency with kings if you have your entire distribution of aces and kings). I'll put it in the errata.

Jerrod

After reading this thread, i'm still unsure on whether to purchase this book. I'm looking for something that covers mostly theory and goes beyond what the usual strategy books do (NLHETAP, HOCG, etc).
I do have a relatively strong math background so there's no problem for me understanding it.
Is this seriously worth a read? I only want to invest my time reading it if it's really going to open my mind up about the game.

Thanks

it think you have to read this book and work yourself on the exercises to estimulate the concepts of the book.

Thanks for the reply. You don't know how good this is to me. Thanks again.

Well, I'm a total newb and trying to take up poker as a semi serious "hobby".
From looking at other books, this one struck me as the only book that is actually talking about optimal strategy/theory while other math heavy theory books are "proofs" of common strategies.
If its worth it or not would seem to boil down to how much homework you want to do as most of it is purely theoretical as opposed to new "if/then" type strategy information.

can anyone explain to me the graphic on page 163 cause i dont get it.

Yup...it's kind of like taking a whole book to explain why there are 4 seasons and when you plant your crops when all you need to know is what you probably already know if you are a half decent gardner.

Ordered this book today.

I picked up this book about a year ago, and read it line-by-line, trying to understand every equation (and I believe I did), but got frustrated after reading about 40% of the book, and put it down.

I have a college education in physics. I can't imagine understanding the book (in detail) unless you have a strong background in math or science. It's basically a college-level math textbook.

I started reading the book again today, after being away from the book for almost a year. I started over, from page one.

I think it would be great if people who are reading the book (or have read the book) help each other out. If this were an actual college course, we could go to the professor for help. There ain't no professor, so we have to help each other. (Unless a game theory expert or Mr. Chen himself is reading this post??)

Any one interested?