Given the fact that the article on "G-Bucks" by Galfond is free, how good must a book be to justify a pricetag of $2500, especially since we know that it is based on the very same concept of range vs. range? This is the question that I cannot answer. In a way it reminds me of the St.Petersburg Paradoxon. What is the correct pricetag for a lottery ticket if the payout is double or nothing? The expected value is infinite after all. Would the real Mr. Bernoulli please stand up...

There are guys selling books, training programs, systems etc. on how to beat the stock market for prices between $1000-$5000. Do you really believe they are any help at beating something as unpredictable,random, and extremely difficult to exploit for profit as the stock market? Of course not. They are basically the sellers get rich quick scam. If just 500 people pay $2500 for something, thats $1,250,000.00 That's what their motivation is for producing these scams. The expense to produce them is almost nothing per unit. None of these people make any money investing in the stock market. They dont even attempt too. Turtle trader is a good example of a stock market scam.
And this shister gets plenty of press.

Well, this is very similiar to that. I don't care what the content of these books is. They are about a game played with one standard deck of playing cards. It's not rocket science. $2500 is outrageous. He made that price up with his imagination. He just wants your money, obviously. I laugh my ass off when I read stuff like its a "phd program for Omaha" or it's only a fee buyins. He probally doesnt have a college degree let alone a phd in anything. Maybe he should sell a book directed at 200-400PLO players and sell it for 20K. Then it's only half a buy-in. The correct way to look at this is its 100 times the price of a 2+2 book. Do you think subjectively a buyer is getting 100 times the value? Please. Another thing, this guy plays 2-4PLO online. Great credentials. How impressive. He's not exactly Phil Galfond or Brian Hastings.

Think of the alternatives to high priced book nonsense. For the price of this book, you can sign up to all the training sites and have a ton of other poker books. My advice to get good at Omaha is to read a few $20 books on Omaha, watch videos by the best players online, and use www.propokertools.com omaha simulator.

If you are foolish enough to want this. Hold out 12 months. When no buys this. He's gonna cut the price 50%. And still when it doesnt sell, he'll have to cut it another 50%. By the times anyone bites on this, it will cost $399.95 for all 4 books. Hmmm, for that price, I rather sign up for Bluefirepoker and learn from Phil"OMGCLAYAIKEN" Galfond. Alternatives, tough decision. Anyway, good luck at the tables.

I think people are failing to understand that these ebooks are marketed to those who find $20 books worthless. Once again, value is relative. Sure, a book is a drop in the hat, but it is a waste if we can gain no information from it. When I first read poker books, I read and read them until I could rewrite them word for word. Now, if I look at a book, I go to Borders for 2 hours with a cofee and scan it, gaining little of value, if anything, making it worth the price of a 2 dollar coffee, but not worth buying. The point is that these guys have information that is not available anywhere else, and it is worth money to gain new information.

But if I do drop 2500 on a book, I hope it is timeless, and if it is a strong book as it is suggested, then it may be worth it. Not because of what it says, but because of the derivitave information. There are very few books that will never lose their value because the foundation is so solid that it will always point you to proper analysis and thinking and you will always find something that will make you think no matter where you are. The short list includes: Theory of Poker, Gambling Theory and Other Topics, Mathematics of Poker, and ??? I want to add Inside the Poker Mind, but I haven't read it in a while.

Is it just me, or is LanceArmstrong = Mahatama619 ?

The same style, the same rhetorical figures and the same hate.

I have yet to see a single constructive, non hate filled, post by him in this section.

Lol, good read imo.

Obviously not gonna touch most of that, but:

No one should buy my book without first doing everything you suggest and I am quite certain that every person who has bought it or gotten coaching from me has done so.

It's a moot point because it won't happen, but if I ever sell the full product for a lower price I will refund the difference to everyone who previously bought it.

Tom

I mentioned it already, but I think it doesn't hurt to elaborate it a bit. The promise of being +EV at something eventually adds up to infinite expectation. If you play long enough, you will end up with all the money of the world. Unfortunately we don't live long enough to realize it (or our opponents run out of money), so the question is, what is infinite expectation worth? Is it worth $20, $200 or $2000 or maybe even $200000? Given the fact that the second million is worth less to you than the first million, it is almost like chipvalue in tournaments, the more you have, the less worth it is to you. So in the end "infinite" turns into a saddlepoint and I doubt, that any book on poker is worth as much as these e-books are getting sold for. It is also quite naive to expect that someone is really giving away the secret to virtually print money for just $2000 whatever.

What you wrote made zero sense.

This is what immediately jumped to my eye ( other than the constant hate ):

And the rest of the style is the same too. Mods should evaluate the situation imho.

Apart from his estimate that the saddle point for utility of growing wealth has a size that makes paying 2000$ too high a prize to reach it and the statement that noone is going to write a text teaching people how to print money 2000$, which imply that 30$ 2+2 book are worthless ... it made perfect sense

No one is going to "end up with all the money of the world" because the amount of money in the world grows exponentially.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_paradox

Finding a price for a "system" that promises you to win money is essentially the same problem.

Yes, it does make sense, but I am not sure you can compare poker information, or any other kind of knowledge that can or will be used to earn money, with a St Petersburg lottery.

I think the main difference is that the conditions of the lottery are set once and for all, whereas knowledge can lead to the gain of further knowledge. Thus, when you price information, you would have to factor this in. Sometimes, information can act as an eye opener and change your perspective in a significant way.

It is partly similar to tuition fees: you don't pay only for teachers and what you are taught, but also for the perspectives the diploma offers (eg. getting a good first job). Otherwise, the basics you learn in school would be mostly overpriced.

Back to Tom's book, it appears that it provides a deep theoretical analysis of PLO, which would serve as a foundation for the rest of your career. If it is the case, it would be far from "magical poker secrets" than would have non-finite--or very short-lived, depending on your position--expected value.

This book, or any ebook, doesn't promise anything. It sounds like this book assumes you made it to a certain level, ie. winning player.

I don't understand this stuff about saddle points and all, but:

right now it's a sellers market;

tom has a fantastic rep and backs that up with great posts here;

he can charge as much as he wants, he's not forcing you to buy;

by pricing it so high, he's not targeting the fish or casual players, he's targeting the responsible, motivated medium and high-stakes players who aren't so arrogant that they believe they know everything and can learn from other peoples experience and hard work.

The randomness of the shuffle and having to guess what the your opponents bets mean make winning at poker against good players extremely difficult thus negating any real value of high priced ebooks. The authors can make way more money selling these books than they will ever make playing poker. Poker is based on one of deck of cards. You should be able to figure out how to play as well as the authors of these ripoff ebooks on your own. Unless you have a low IQ, and then you are going to lose anyway, because you are not smart, so you are still wasting your money if you purchase these books. Good luck to the people that are in favor of these books. You are going to need it.

[X] confirmed

Guys, there's a difference between playing poker and playing cards some of the time. Not to mention that "a simple deck of cards" is a hell of a lot more complex than most of you give it credit for.

It's only one guy who gives not enough credit IMO..

And what´s the value of an exclusive discussion forum?

About the same as that of study groups.

Some people would say that public forums suffer from people holding back and it being difficult to filter good from bad advice, but I think the quantity of posts and larger number of very good players overwhelms that. So I wouldn't focus much on exclusivity of a private forum as making the discussions inherently better, even though that's possible with a strong, committed group.

Rather it's that there are a limited number of people with access to the book and it makes sense to provide them a place to discuss specific content with others who are reading the same material and doing the same lessons. Like Sean said, a study group.

I'm not all the way through Tom's book yet, but as a poker strategy video producer and someone who has seen a good number of PLO videos (including the ones on the site I work for) I can say that Tom's book so far blows away the currently accessible PLO material both in depth and breadth.

IMO if you are at all serious about PLO or you want to become serious about PLO, you should buy the book. The $2500 cost is expensive, esp for small stakes guys on short bankrolls, however if you want to get better at PLO as fast as possible, this book is currently the best way to do so. For those small stakes guys who are serious about getting better, it might be worth picking up some odd jobs to pad your roll so you can more easily afford the book.

I'll probably post a more detailed write up on my blog once I make it all the way through the book. I will caution you guys though, the info is dense and it's something you'll want to study more like a college text book.

WoT

They all trade endorsements with one another. "You endorse me, I'll endorse you." It works this way in every industry. Everythings about bucks, kids. They just want your fin money for their crap.