http://www.amazon.com/Pot-Limit-Omah...7947533&sr=8-5

Anyone know anything about this book?

Probably going to be better than Farha's?

I asked about this book back before the switch over to vBulletin, but I don't remember what the responses were.

The author and his stalker came here to flame each other briefly. Bit weird. I would like a review of this book. I hope it stinks and the Omaha fish remain plentiful.

You're looking at it from the wrong angle IMO. A successful book would help increase the number of fish, not reduce it. It would increase the game's visibility, attracting further interest, and thus more players. Most players don't really think much on their plays, and the books don't change this. In fact, they don't seek books to learn how to think, but for ABC winning formulas. So what you really get is a ton of players memorizing starting hand charts, and then bungling around in the post-flop phase. I'm oversimplifying, but you get the point.

Strangely, chess is very similar. It is the reason for the mountains of opening books guaranteeing results. These books in turn attract more players to stick to the game, in the search for that Holy Grail.

Anything that might increase the pool of players should be welcomed with open arms.

I partially disagree Mr Silver - my feeling is you earn most money from the weakest players and books which give fish even a partly sound guide to play can stop someone being an uber-donator to the table,

having said that it may be possible that someone loses more money with a partially understood book strategy than with their own strategy.

As you mention you can see this in chess where say for a low rated player to try to play open sicilian as white is probably worse than themmakingup their own anti sicilian strategy.

I think the original thought holds. Using your Sicilian analogy: some woodpusher creates an anti-Sicilian strategy and loses far too often so he gives up playing. Whereas if he plays a recognised line, he does not go awry until move eleven and thinks he has a chance and keeps coming back.

Moreover, knowing something does not mean anyone will act on it. Do you think smokers don't know that smoking kills, that somehow they missed that?

I just got it in and posted one deep discounted copy as B-stock. It got a little dinged up in shipping if anyone wants to check it out. Upon first glance it looks interesting. He describes several plays and has several hand quizzes. 332 pages so its not a slouch on material. Here is a scan of the back cover:

Mike

You're still focusing on the players who learn it right. It doesn't matter if there are now 1000 more players playing it right, if the total pool of players grows by 10,000. Meaning 9000 more for you to play against. Game selection has always been a factor in poker anyhow.

books, or even one book, definitely make the fish better. they learn not to play so many hands, which is at least half the battle, i'd say.

also, TV brings them in, but i think eventually they learn somewhat from the TV commentary. not as much as you'd learn from a good book... but again starting hands, and not calling down with garbage (although that's more limit)

Help the FISH !!!

it is the right thing to do and the right time of year to do it

gee i have to wait til after christmas to order it but i want to say i am impressed.
the reason is for so long on amazon the book is listed at 156 pages
now i find out the book is twice as long!!!.
I am happy and hope to purchase the book after christmas and look forward to a review by someone of course.

so someone please review away eh!

This assumes that the Fish know enough to buy a poker book. I would suggest poker book sales suggest otherwise. Moreover, the biggest teacher in life is experience and the Fish refuse to learn from it so what chance has a book of instilling any wisdom in them. A Fish who did find himself reading a poker book would become marginally better and stick around longer. You can shear a sheep many times but skin it only once.

I'm shocked that a thread on this book has diverged into a philosophical discussion, the arguments of which a couple of posters can't let go of...

Definitely like somebody to review this one.

A good PLO book is long overdue in the poker book market.

There are no less than 5 high-quality hold'em books, yet there are a ton of terrible players. There are only a handful of good omaha books and the players are still terrible. The difference is that there are about 5 million terrible hold'em books that people buy and use, so the fish will always get worse. I think certain posters are over-estimating a person's desire to study. A general player is a hobbyist. He reads a book once if it is too hard (2+2), or maybe twice if it is easy.

Omaha is an evil game, IMO. I also think that the Omaha8 forum is one of the most complete and accurate forums on 2+2, and that anyone willing to learn and study study study would become a very good Omaha player by just reviewing the back-threads.