lol, I certainly wouldn't claim the article about "the person" is "useful." But if it gets a few people who are familiar with him to chuckle, I'll be happy about my decision to include it. I suppose it could offend someone, but it should be clear that it's not meant to be taken seriously.

Fair point about the WoF article. I probably should've clarified the format/rules somewhat, yeah. I was disappointed that you didn't like that inclusion b/c I know you're a math guy ... FWIW, if you have any interest in taking another look, you can check out the rules in the links I'm about to PM to you.

I'd change "usually isn't" to "is never." My opinion is that if you don't know which way a player is exploitable, you'll do best by making the decision(s) you think will best exploit the average player in the game you're playing (or if you know the guy's a TAG but have no reads beyond that, by making the decision[s] you think will best exploit the average TAG in the game you're playing, etc.).

Right, and that's obviously fair. Furthermore, I haven't been public with that offer until now, though I've extended it to a couple of guys who've purchased the strategy articles.

Jon I don't want to put you on the spot here, but this struck me as an odd comment. I have noticed you making ALOT of references to how you are not going to market your products compared to your competitors. I assume you are somewhat comparing yourself to me (If not I apologize). Yet this post kind of says to me "well if I'm not making alot of money, the rules will change".

First of all, what did you expect to happen????

Second, I hope I am misunderstanding something, because this message is kind of pissing me off. I have no doubt you are an awesome coach or that the product is great, but this seem like now you are wanting to have your cake and eat it too. I really respected your position on marketing, although I had a feeling it wouldn't get you very far monetarily.

I thought "Wow guys like John and Peter James must know that they aren't going to make alot of money with their marketing strategies, yet they do this anyways, we should all be more like them".

Today, you'll notice that Peter James coaching thread no longer exists......

Now your slowly backing out of your high ground position because your not making enough money???? Jon, having someone else do something unethical for your benefit is just as bad as doing it yourself, worse in fact.

If you are going to have "one or more people market things in ways that you are not comfortable", you should re-think that statement, and re-examine your moral compass, and how you present your self to the public.

Sorry, if this is not the appropriate place to post. I don't want to make a huge deal for Jon here. I did feel the need to point this out, because I don't think Jon is being fair. Basically, I am saying "Jon, pick something and stick to it"

Hello sir,

No worries about "putting me on the spot." That's more or less the reason for this thread; I'll be more than happy to field every reasonable question that gets posed to me. My hope is that this thread will focus more on the product itself than peripheral issues like pricing and marketing, but clearly I have little control over that.

I can see how that comment might've struck you as "odd" or inconsistent. Please allow me to clarify a few things.

Shrug, I wasn't comparing myself to you or anyone in particular. I hardly keep up with the goings-on of the other coaches here. I simply don't care to. I see whose threads are getting bumped constantly, I read the big NVG thread when it was active, and I occasionally check out threads other than mine for the hell of it, but that's about it.

Your feeling is way off the mark and you'd probably be better served by not making assumptions about these sorts of things. I'd also appreciate it if you'd refrain from speculating about things like this in the future, as they're none of your business. Peter's thread might not exist anymore (I wouldn't claim to know or care), but I've gotten so many students with my "strategy" (or lack thereof) that I've twice been forced to raise my rates. And SFH is selling fine.

I'm not backing out of any position. My position has always been the same, you've just apparently never understood what it is.

I've never claimed that aggressive marketing is "unethical." You're lumping me in with other individuals and assuming that my message is the same as theirs. It's not. In fact, I've never used the word "unethical" in this sort of context, and that's deliberate, as I pride myself on being quite careful with my words.

I certainly don't find aggressive marketing or high pricing to be "unethical." I believe wholeheartedly in the free market. If some guy wants to take a dump in a container, sell it for $5,000, create a thread about it on an Internet forum, and bump that thread every day to remind everyone of its existence, that's not unethical to me. Only when this hypothetical individual 1. misrepresents what he's selling and/or 2. refuses to respond honestly to a reasonable question has he crossed the line that divides ethics and lack of ethics.

The vast majority of the individuals who would sell a dump in a container for $5,000 and market it aggressively would also be dishonest about it; I suspect that that's the reason for your confusion. However, again, please note that I've never used the words "unethical" or "dishonest" in this sort of context or called any poker coach out for being such. I've used the word "uncomfortable" and stated that I prefer not to do certain things myself. That has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with how I prefer to spend my time.

The tone of my "infomercial" is clearly aggressive (I think it's more comedic than aggressive, but it was perceived as aggressive enough by 2+2 that I was forced to replace it with a censored version). If I had an ethical issue with aggressive marketing, I obviously wouldn't have posted it at the top of the product ad in my coaching thread, lol. As is visible above, I'm not the one who created the "infomercial." I handled the technical poker aspects of it (the fabricated hand histories), but I was neither the writer of the script nor the director nor the video editor. That's not because I think this sort of thing is unethical, it's simply because it's not natural for me, and given that, I'd probably be relatively ineffective at it. Since I don't find such tactics unethical, I'd certainly have no problem hiring other individuals to handle them for me. As long as I were confident that there would be no chance of such individuals misrepresenting what I had to offer to potential customers, that sort of arrangement would be fine with me.

edit:

Again, no worries. I think your decision to post this here was appropriate and I certainly don't mind the post. As I stated above, I'd be happier if the thread were to focus on the product itself, but I'm not offended or anything. I hope my response has cleared things up for you, but you're obviously entitled to think whatever you'd like.

Isn't this the exact same informercial sales pitch YourDoom uses in the videos of his you caricature?

Disclaimer: I have no reason to think your stuff is anything other than excellent. But it does seem inconsistent to ridicule others for their tacky marketing and disingenuous sales pitches (which they often are), while saying stuff like "Im not going to market this aggressively but I can tell you respected 2+2 ers agree that I should be charging more.

If you *really* believed that, then you would in fact actually be charging more. Im sure you can see why! And if you don't really believe that, then please don't say it, as it sounds like tacky marketing speak!

Sup my man,

Hrm. Not only is it not "the exact same sales pitch," it's not even close to the same thing:

1. I parodied the fact that he was advertising his services in the comments section of nanonoko's TableRatings profile (a tactic that, to be clear, I think is laughable, though certainly not "unethical"). I've never parodied his claim that his video series provide good value, since as far as I'm concerned, there would be nothing to parody. In fact, based on what I've seen, I'd estimate that his video series would provide good value to most potential customers. I can't be sure, as A. I haven't bought either of his video series, B. the content in his previews seems "meh" to me, and C. the tiny amount of strategy writing I've seen him post on 2+2 has been terrible. Still, his products' reviews are quite good.

2. There's a huge difference between an author A. claiming that his product provides good value (as I have) and B. issuing a pseudo-threat in which he informs potential customers that he might raise his product's price at any time. The first thing is beyond standard and should be expected from every author who's confident in his product (if I didn't think my product offered good value, then I wouldn't think it would sell, and it would be priced differently). The second thing is obnoxious and perhaps even disingenuous.

This quote is unclear. I'd like you to clarify what it is that you're claiming I don't believe. My statement that respected 2+2ers have looked over the product and suggested that I charge more isn't something that I could believe or not believe. It's simply a fact. I could have them corroborate this claim if I had to.

As far as their suggesting that I charge $X and my responding by charging $X - $Y (Y > 0), that's hardly controversial and is in fact the sort of thing that should be expected. Pricing isn't an exact science, obviously. These guys thought I'd maximize my earnings by charging $X. I respect their opinions, but obviously I don't agree; thus, I decided to charge less. To be as clear as possible, my approach to pricing is relatively simple, as I have no concern for worsening the quality of the games or protecting the information within my product, as I would have if I'd created it prior to Black Friday: I priced it in a way that I estimated would make me the most money, period. Others estimated that I'd make more money with steeper pricing. Since pricing isn't "solvable," neither party is right or wrong.

As regards my strategy articles, RedJoker posted that he wasn't sure he'd "be able to recommend [them] as a stand-alone purchase in [their] current format" due to their length. That's fine, of course; he's entitled to his opinion. I posted the exact combined length of the strategy articles in my written product ad (in number of words ... to my knowledge, no other author of this sort of product is willing to do that), so it should be very obvious that I'm not looking to mislead anyone.

I countered his statement by posting that I think they provide good value despite their relative brevity and supported my stance by pointing out that other individuals have suggested that I charge more for the strategy articles than $75 (not that I should need to post it, but I'll never raise the price of any of the packages of SFH). As an aside, their suggestions didn't surprise me. While my video analyses are quite long and my strategy articles are much shorter, every component of my product is extremely "dense" (I don't waste my words), is packed with quality information, and is a result of an obsessive writing style that ensures that every message is crystal clear (a huge amount of time was spent on word choice). Winning poker is about nuance -- many a 1-bb winner likes to think the difference between his game and that of a 5-bb winner is that his game (the 1-bb winner's) has a few big leaks (if that's the case, then he has the ability to be winning at 5 bb in no time, right?), but the reality is that the culprit is almost always lots of tiny leaks -- and that means the verbal ability of the author of an educational poker product is of the utmost importance.

Admittedly, I don't have a ton of experience with the Books and Publications forum, but I must say that I find the psychology of it quite strange. Nearly every thread about an e-book or quasi-e-book seems to devolve into a relatively substance-free discussion of issues such as pricing and marketing. These things are relatively uninteresting to me, and to be honest, I find myself wondering, "Why?"

I'm willing to spend time fielding these sorts of questions to the best of my ability, as I've posted. But I'm also willing to spend time fielding questions that are more substantive about a product that 1. has a format that's never been seen before and 2. just about everyone seems to agree contains high-quality poker writing.

Shrug.

The reason that "Nearly every thread about an e-book or quasi-e-book seems to devolve into a relatively substance-free discussion of issues such as pricing and marketing" is poker is one of if only the only area I have seen such obscene pricing for material.

Your publication is no different. It seems everyone coming from the poker coaching side wants to price their publications in a coaching pricing model. You seem to be no different. Just because a few suckers bite, that still doesn't mean that poker e-book authors do not deserve to have their pricing model questioned by potential customers.

Poker is also the only area in which carefully-studied written material can help you increase your earn rate significantly relatively immediately. Poker is fundamentally different than literally every other endeavor on which written material exists because it's a pure meritocracy.

You know nothing about my publication. Have you even read the sample material? You know nothing about me. I know more about you than you do about me, lol.

People can publicly question whatever they want, obviously. That doesn't mean such questioning is "deserved," especially when it arguably detracts from substantive discussion.

I resent your implication that everyone who buys SFH is a "sucker." Do you think everyone who pays $XXX for poker coaching is also a sucker? If not, why not?

Given that I know there's no chance whatsoever that you'll purchase SFH, if you insist on continuing to post in this thread, I'm going to make a friendly request that you peruse the reviews in my coaching thread. You're baselessly implying that I'm looking to rip people off. That bothers me a little bit.

I strongly disagree with this.

I will give you one example investing.

Like poker, there is a great deal of written material on the subject. I know, I worked for one of the worlds greatest investors for several years. I also have some more than satisfying results myself, thus giving me time to play poker and post on 2+2. When carefully-studied, the written material on investing can help you increase your earn rate significantly, immediately.

You don't need to buy a $500 e-book to be successful in investing. I would suggest six books that if purchased new would cost you under a $100 and given 15 years, with the same amount of starting capitol, lets say 35k. We could take 100 of your best and brightest poker students, and I could take 100 investing students. Over 90% of my investing students if they followed my advice and, the advice in the six books would out earn your poker students with far less volatility. Sure you would have an outlier or two that will earn more, but 9 out of 10 would highly likely fall significantly short of my group. No fancy overpriced e-book needed.

"Someone posted about this exact point a few years ago regarding another one of the flavor of the month overpriced e-books.

Originally Posted by Mason Malmuth;

Even though I haven't read a word of this book, I can almost guarantee that it isn't worth its price. The reasoning is very simle.

If you have a terrific poker book, and sell it through the standard mass marketing publishing, sales can be terrific. For instance, three of our books have sales of a quarter of a million copies (or more), four of our other books have sold over 100,000 copies, and one of our more recent publications, Harrington on Cash: Volume I, which has now been out for almost a year, has just over 48,000 in sales and is still selling well.

So my point is that if this book is as good as claimed where it is actually worth the price, the authors would make far more by selling it through conventional means (and if they went with us as a publisher, assuming we would be interested in doing it, their royalties would be substantial). In addition, we would also offer the book to our foreign language publishers, where additional royalties would be received by the author. So it is difficult for me to believe that it can be worth the price.

MM"

"If you purchase a number of our books, that can also cost hundreds of dollars. So if the video site supplies you with information that is not only accurate, but dense in its presentation, then paying the amount you quote can be well worth it.

I think your problem is that you are confusing the buyer and seller. The reason we price our books at the amount we price them, and this varies some from book to book, is simply that we believe this is the price which maximizes our profits. And when I say "maximizes our profits," this includes what the author(s) will make in royalties.

So in this case, assuming the e-book in question is worth this extremely high price, I believe if it was expanded into a full sized book, the authors could make much more, and I'm talking millions of dollare in royalties over the life of the book. So either the authors don't understand this, or the book isn't worth the asking price. It's that simple.

MM"


Check out the thread.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/33...e-book-421627/

You may think I am quoting Mason out of context but I am confident the same applies to your book as well.


As for ripping people off I think again Mason will address this best. Your material may be very good but that still does not mean the material is not overpriced. Please read the bold as i think this directly applies to your publication as well.

Originally Posted by Mason Malmuth;

"Just so there is no misunderstanding, I believe these books are over priced even though I have not read them. Furthermore, because of my long experience at working in the poker/gambling authoring and poker/gambling publishing business, and being more successful at this than virtually anyone else, it's my opinion that my opinion is a very good one.

Also, just because they are over priced does not mean that the information they contain is not of value or not accurate. My suspicion is that is where you are getting confused.

And finally, assuming I'm right, we should begin to see lower priced material that is at least as good becoming available in the not to distant future. And when this happens, our opinion about being questionable will go away.

MM"

Your example is very flawed.

The best investors can increase their bankrolls by 20%-30% a year due to the nature of investing. The best poker players can increase their bankrolls by way, way more than that. That's why I used the phrase "relatively immediately." Why you chose to ignore those words is curious to me. I find your agenda to be a strange one.

A more analogous example is trading, though it's much less of a meritocracy than poker because 1. you need significantly more starting capital to make money at it than poker and 2. things such as commissions and software cost act as barriers that render it quite difficult to beat without the right resources (meanwhile, a serious online poker needs only Hold'em Manager or PokerTracker, the one-time cost of which is less than $100, and a reliable Internet connection).

Still, if one of the top 1,000 traders in the world were to release a polished 70,000+-word writeup providing his reasoning for hundreds of trades in excruciating detail -- the trading equivalent of SFH -- it would sell quite well at $500+/copy. You wouldn't buy it, but many other individuals would.

Besides, literally anyone can make money at investing with very minimal effort. The stock market returns 5%-10%/year depending on how you want to slice it. Throwing some money in a few index funds doesn't take any skill.

Not only have I come across this post, I've seen it reposted by you. You're providing me with points of view with which I'm already quite familiar. Do you think I came up with a price for SFH spontaneously? I did my research and hit it from several angles. This sort of discussion is neither helpful nor insightful. It's ultra-redundant. But I'll take a moment to humor you with a plan to ignore your pricing-related posts from here on. I hope you won't continue to make them in this thread thereafter; I happen to know that, for some reason, you're obsessed with this subject.

Mason is a very smart guy, obviously, and his point of view here is an interesting one, but his post is a vast oversimplification of reality. His thought process -- and yours, to some extent, because you insist on parroting it in this forum relatively constantly -- is flawed because it assumes that every poker publication has a similar target market. Books like Harrington on Hold 'em and The Theory of Poker have sold thousands and thousands of copies because their target markets are gigantic. Those books are accessible to just about every individual who's interested in poker because their purpose is to teach readers the game from the ground up. They're not going to help anyone begin to beat, say, $50 NL or higher online or transition from, say, $100 NL to $200 NL. This is the case because its authors aren't capable of playing high-level cash game poker themselves; given that, they couldn't possibly provide readers with a level of material comparable to that of the e-books we're discussing.

Please note that this isn't meant to be interpreted as a slam. I have a lot of respect for Mason, David Sklansky, and the other authors on the roster of 2+2 Publishing. I bought HoH Volume 1 in early 2006. I loved reading it and it was crucial to my game. Dan Harrington is still one of my favorite poker players. I still seek out Mason's and David's posts on the forums. Would I read a NLHE cash game book put out by 2+2 Publishing next week, though? No chance. I might browse it in a book store if I were bored. As arrogant as this will probably come off, it wouldn't be worth my time to read one of their books. In general, their authors have no noteworthy cash game NLHE ability. Again, this isn't meant to be a slam. The authors of 2+2 books are really, really smart people. Guys like me would crush them in NLHE cash games only because guys like me have put dramatically more time into studying and playing NLHE cash games than they have. From late 2005 through late 2010, NLHE cash games were more or less my life. If I hadn't gotten to a point where a book like HoH was light reading material for me, it would arguably be pathetic. By buying SFH, in a way, you're getting five years of my life.

The exception to what I've written above seems to be Analytical No-Limit Hold 'em: Crushing Mid-Stakes Short-Handed Games by Thomas Bakker. I believe it launched at ~$30. I haven't read the book, but I've read discussion about it. It seems alright. It also seems to feature some ridiculously fundamentally-flawed thinking, such as the recommendation to 4-bet preflop to committing sizes. What I'd like to know is: where are the author's results? Has the author beaten NLHE cash games for $100+/hour over 1,000,000+ hands? His results are nowhere to be seen. There are relatively few individuals who have "crush[ed] mid-stakes short-handed games." I'm one of them. I suspect that the author isn't.

$150+ e-books and video series don't have the same sort of target market that 2+2 books do. SFH is meant for people who are already breakeven or better at, say, $50 NL and/or are extremely dedicated to improving their NLHE games (if you have to ask yourself, "Do I fit into that category?" the answer is "No"). That's a tiny fraction of the poker-playing population. If a losing $10 NL player were to ask me whether he should buy TToP, I'd tell him, "Absolutely." If he were to ask me whether he should buy SFH, I'd tell him, "Absolutely not." SFH has a tiny fraction of the target audience that something like TToP does -- it's meant for players who have already put lots of time into their games and who are already relatively dangerous -- but it offers way more value to the players in its wheelhouse than something like TToP. TToP explains the concept of expected value. SFH assumes that its readers are already quite familiar with expected value and immediately dives into complex NLHE hands to which the concept is inherent. Hopefully you see the difference. Comparing $15-$30 poker books to e-books written by players who have won $100,000+ in online cash games is like comparing apples to oranges.

That's the reason e-books from successful online cash game players tend to be priced the way they are. Their target audiences are much smaller, but the individuals in those target audiences are much more willing to pay good money for the information within (see: elasticity). You seem to think the authors of e-books set their prices randomly or are all scumbags who are hoping to rip a few people off. You're guilty of 1. not thinking very much about the subject and/or 2. not thinking clearly about the subject (honey badgers are diggers; please dig a bit deeper ). There's reasoning behind the pricing methodology of guys like Tri, shootaa, and me. It has nothing to do with trying to deal to "suckers" (a bunch of people have already bought the biggest SFH package and I'm certain that some of them are very smart; if you knew anything about their backgrounds, you'd feel silly for insulting them the way you have) and everything to do with markets and elasticity.

Your suspicion is wrong. We're on the same page. I understand your (Mason's) point and certainly never thought that you were suggesting the product contains weak information. Hopefully this post clarifies things.

This hasn't happened. It's been three years since MM's post. I don't know what sort of time table he had in mind, but my estimate is that it's not going to happen any time soon. The information is too valuable. When it comes to the target audience, the pricing is too inelastic.

Your missing something my friend..... it's called compounding.

To make more, than last year a poker player has to play more hands or move up in stakes most probably effecting his win rate. This caps his earning potential without even looking at the risks of being an online poker player. What games are you crushing online today as a US player? If you are playing on Merge good luck getting your money. Can you say Full Tilt or UB take 3. You need to factor these risks into your plan. 10 years ago there were few NL Holdem games and no real online poker. What will the game look like in 10 years who knows?

You have to keep playing day after day as well. That or become an poker e-book author to make money as a cash game pro. Investors can take time off and not effect there profit potential. In fact it might enhance it.

An investor earning 16%, (very well attainable if you know what your doing and we are not talking index funds,) will make his 35k into about $325,000 in 15 years without adding a dime through the magic of compounding. The best part is you don't need to work that much harder to keep the money growing then when you started. Poker player face better opponents each year and must work very hard to stay ahead of the competition.

Second your poker playing student has to pay taxes on his winnings every year robbing him of a good portion of his bankroll. Secondly our tax code is very friendly to investors allowing them to offset gains with losses and carry over losses from the previous year. The poker player is out of luck with such treatment from the tax code.

Dividends from investments are taxed at a lower rate then earned income. You can choose when to be taxed as an investor not as a poker player. The deck is stacked against you as a poker player compliments of our tax code and treatment of gambling by society, including unfavorable laws. We haven't even discussed the rake.

Also, your poker player, like the trader you allude to has to deal with random events out of his control. That's why poker players talk about variance continually. Traders face the same issues. Based on the fact many traders use leverage it only compounds the risk. Take a look at 2008 and derivatives if you want to see how that can workout. Not good.

So no trading is like poker. Far more losers then winners in both games and only the very best can make a really profitable go of it in the long run.

One hundred people that I teach how to invest well, 90% will beat 100 poker player coached by you over 15 years each starting with 35K. Most of my students would have over 250K in 15 years and a few 500k. Your poker playing students????????

So much wandering off topic ITT.

I've had this material for about a month now. In that time I've only played 40K hands, but I've also gone from a -1.5bb/100 loser to a 2.5bb winner. I'm not going to claim the stuff will automatically tack on 4bb/100 to your winrate (as I don't think you can quantify that sort of thing accurately as there are bound to be other influencing factors, variance, etc.) but this has paid for itself in quite short order. There are a lot of spots that were trouble for me before that I breeze through now, not through getting advice on a specific hand or spot, but by improving my thinking about the game.

I think that's what I'm liking about it so much at the moment - the fact that instead of just offering generalized advice, it's helping me build a solid framework to work from going forward.

Pretty sure I said it ITT earlier already, but if you play the game seriously at NL200 or less and do kind of okay but just can't seem to bust through to long term profit, SFHiYCD is definitely worth the buy (it might be worth it at NL400 and beyond as well, but I'm not there yet, so I don't want to overstep).

This e-book (e-material, really) will definitely sit in my library in the small category of poker related stuff that actually paid for itself.

I am sure your information in your publication is very good.

You clearly are a talented poker player and a quality poker coach.

That said have you priced some of the past expensive e-books recently?

Baluga Whale's "Easy Game" a book that has received some good review is available for 20% of what he was charging before Black Friday. Mason was spot on about e-book pricing.

"Easy Game" has also been on the market for a long time. It's the way of, well, everything: It's most expensive when it first comes out, and the longer it's out, the more the price goes down.

I've read a bunch of your posts ITT and I can't help but wonder: What's your point? Obviously some people will find the price too steep, others won't, just like paying $XX per hour for coaching.

I guess I just don't get why you have such a huge chip on your shoulder - or do you wander into all e-book threads so you can complain about the price?

I've browsed tons of e-book, coaching, and staking threads, and for probably 95% of them, I've thought, "well, this price/style/product isn't for me" and moved on. If I complained up a storm every time I found something that wasn't a good fit, I probably wouldn't have actually played any poker in the last year.

Do you find this a satisfying use of your time? I'd love to discuss it, please feel free to send me a PM. This thread (afaik) is for book reviews, and talking about pricing issues is pretty off topic.