I'm not through it but it's good. You can definitely do VPIP, but I've only learned to do it on two players. I suppose it gets expanded later in the book. Plus, all hands, 2 cards, are given names and rankings, e.g., K5 is "knives cutting a rope covered with DDT." That's actually mine, as I changed it a bit, to DDT from something else. Knives = K5, rope=49th ranked hand for suited and DDT = 111th hand for unsuited. Sounds crazy I know, but you can remember the image. T or D = 1(hence DDT for 111), R=4 and P=9, hence rope. vowels mean nothing, just filler. Regarding VPIP, a different and easier technique. He uses pokerstove for rankings, and though I didn't like some rankings, on wikipedia, there's a list of Sklansky, Hellmuth and actual stats of winning hands, and the actual stats are very close to pokerstove, so close I figured what the heck. The VPIP method, at least for tracking two people, is very easy. When you have someone playing 40% and you're playing inside 15% range, you feel pretty good about your chances.

This method forces you to pay attention, no watching TV if you're playing online, no multi tables, and live, will be a real killer, but you'll forced to pay attention when not in hand, which can't be bad.

Has anybody read chapter TT yet? His numbers seem to be off unless I'm missing something. Whenever I Pokerstove his hand ranges the percentages are off quite a bit. It makes me wonder how valid his hand rankings are as well.

I read the book straight through then planned to study it if I thought it was worth it but I don't want to put that much effort into something if the info is bad.

I saw that too. I wondered why until I actually physically counted the hands and looked at what stove was saying the range was.

If you use the scroll bar or type in the hand range in stove say at 30% (Stove goes to 30.2%) you will get 59 hands highlighted. 59/169 = 34.9% of the 169 hands in holdem. 30.2% is actually 51 hands, Looks like Bennett went to the true 30.2% instead of using the scroll bar. Pokerstove has been adding 4.7% to your range for a while.

The descrepancy actually gets wider as you approach 70%, which .7*169 is 118.3 or as Bennett say in the book 118. If you type in 70% in stove it goes to 70.1% but stove highlights 130 hands - 12 more than the actual range. 130/169 is 76.9% which is 6.9% more hands than the actual number.

Now I am not sure why stove includes the extra hands, maybe the software does it differently or there is a glitch. I think that's why there is a difference.

TC

Well then I believe Bennett is wrong. The percentages should be based on combos per 1326. He is basing his percentages on hands per 169. As an extreme example, lets say one player plays all suited hands and no pairs. Another player plays all offsuit hands and no pairs. According to Bennett they would be playing the same number of hands, but actually player B is playing 3x as many hands.

Good point. The result looks like he is a little tighter on the range and catches back up towards the 100 percent mark when all the unsuited hands come back into play.

I am still working on live tracking which is awesome. Headed to the casino this weekend to do it again.

TC

I'm not as familiar with poker stove as I am with Sklansky's, Hellmuth's, Harrington's ranges. Do people consider pokerstove's more accurate/dependable?

TC, I'm reading the book, and have used tracking on just two spots, seats 3 and 4. Does he go into tracking all seats later in the book?

Yes he does. You will be able to track 10 players in your head, 9 plus yourself so you know what your own image is. I am trying it at the casino cash game tonight.

TC

Working from memory here (heh) but weren't his number of hands assuming a linear ranking from 1 to 169, while Pokerstove assumes a number of hands from 1 to 1326 (i.e, the Onika rankings assume an equal number of ways for a hand to be suited, unsuited, or paired)? Obviously Pokerstove's percentages are more germane at the table, but Onika's were easier to calculate to demonstrate the technique.

Speaking of which, I think that's the power of Onika's book: showing off a technique. I wouldn't necessarily memorize the same information that he lays out for you. More valuable (at least for a tournament player such as myself) to use his techniques to memorize Kill Everyone's push/fold Power Numbers and the like. I'm not convinced of the value of knowing an arbitrary ranking of hands from #1 to #169, say. But knowing that A7o is a top 20% calling hand or has a Power Number of 22 seems like much more important information. YMMV.

For those on the fence, I think this is a potentially valuable book for folks willing to put forth a lot of effort on their own. But this'd make for a poor book for someone who is only willing to read 5 books on the game. For avid readers on the topic, this book brings plenty of new information to light. (Though it should be noted that folks familiar with Ramon Campayo's memory system may be discouraged to find out there are fundamental differences in the building blocks of the method. I use the Onika fundamentals, but with some of Campayo's mnemonic devices.)

Finally for folks wanting an electronic version, I found the process (detailed inside the back cover on page "182") of dealing with ECW Press to get a free electronic version for owners of the print version to be extremely painless. Kudos to ECW Press for their permissive attitude in this regard. I'm much more likely to purchase future ECW Press books for just this reason.

Which books did you purchase/read by campayo? I looked him up and found some books but would like to know what you liked about him.

TC

TC, how did you do last night?

Did awesome. Thanks for asking. I tracked for longer than I thought I could about 2 hours, honestly I had all the information I needed after about 40 minutes as there were 2 fish that were there. I was up about $400 in a 1-2 game and I can tell you I have never seen the table live so clearly. I read your post and you said you thought it would be killer at a live game, well it is. The bigger hand where I stacked one of the fish was on a marginal hand in position. I raised to 8 with K9o on the button. I have $250 behind and the fish in the BB had $140. His VPIP was 15/31 hands slightly less than 50 percent. Mine was 20% as I was a little card ded. What you mentioned was that by doing this technique you focus a LOT more on your competition which indeed is true. You pick up everything, more than I normally would have.

He was a serious calling station, never bet, but always called. He also was making crying calls with mid pair or often air to the river.

Flop hit and it K 10 2 rainbow. He checks I bet out 14, he calls. Now normally I would be afraid that I may have been outkicked but because I felt I really knew him I felt my K9 was huge vs his range. Turn come a 4, no real help. He checks again, I notice he has about 110-120 left and I am thinking how to extract as at this point I am putting him on some kind of 10. I make it 34 to go he calls. River comes a 3, no flush but a possible straight, can't see him making any card that helps him. He checks a 3rd time, he hasnt folded ever and I really think I am ahead so I shove, he sits there looks at me hums and haws, then makes the call.

I showed the k9 and he said it was good. He said he had jts but who really knows because he mucked it. Best I have felt live for a while.

Wow. Pretty awesome. I see a couple of things which really relate to the book/method. You were focused, you knew the VPIP's, and figured top pair vs. 50% range was a solid bet, esp since you had him covered. Seems you may have won the hand anyway, but looks like the knowledge allowed you to be more confident/aggressive with the betting. Hard to tell if a guy's a calling station at live game unless you do the numbers, and of course you as you mention, could be outkicked. Maniacs are more easily identifiable without the math. Excellent. I'm psyched. I'll probably have all VPIP's for each place in about 3 weeks. K9 is a great hand to win a pot like that. Usually one I want to check down to showdown, or try to bet enough on the flop to get the fold. In both situations, you win less $$$ than you did.

Maximize Your Memory (2010)

It's a very similar system. I think Onika goes into more memory-related topics more briefly, while this Campayo book touches more of the earlier (easier) topics in greater depth. I'm happy I read Campayo first, but someone looking for focused help at the poker table probably has what they need in Onika's book.

Thank you i will order it.

Awesome