Quote:
Originally Posted by I_lose
In what way are books, coaching, and what not snake oil? We've been playing chess for hundreds of years and there are still things to be learned and studied and passed down. You believe that a game that is close to chess in it's strategic depth is able to be mastered so quickly?
What assumptions need to be made? (Note: I don't pretend to come close to knowing or understand GTO. But I do understand that a game so steeped in math would have a math-based strategy at it's core)
No one is saying "everyone should master GTO or it's approximations". There are plenty of people who can focus solely on exploiting opponent errors and make great money. (though, I would argue that you can't define an error unless you can define what is correct.)
Here's an analogy:
Paul McCartney has always refused to study music theory, because he fears it will take away his creativity. Does that mean he doesn't utilize it every time he writes/plays music? No. He just doesn't focus on learning it. Every time you sit down to play and you play "better" than your opponent you are utilizing the concepts of GTO (if only to capitalize on villains blunders.)
There are maybe 2 or 3 poker books that I think sum up the entirety of thought as far as value in Hold'em goes. Kill Phil (maybe the 2nd too) for tournaments, NLHETAP, and applications of NLHE. Those 3 books enable you to understand everything you need to know to beat the games today. Anything more than that is just garbage. I also read a chapter from a full tilt book that was written by Chris Ferguson, and another thing written by Howard Lederer about leverage. THAT'S IT. In all my years of reading possibly a hundred books- they were all trash except for those few. Those few say everything you need to know.
Coaching is really important if you're not understanding fundamentals. If you don't know how to review your play, or make adjustments. If you're having issues with tilt, or clouding your judgment with emotion... or just some stupid leak that everyone has (for example, playing your roadie... Q4os because hey- it's your roadie!). Coaches can get all those bad habits out of you. But beyond that, they're not going to be able to help you learn any special secret. They might recognize certain players at a certain limit doing certain things that MIGHT reflect how you should react moreso than you've been doing.
In a coaching session, when they tell you to do something in a live situation... if it works out they take all the praise and if it doesn't they say, "that's not usually going to happen." It's up to you whether or not you believe them... and once again, you're left to your own devices. You have to put in the time to research the play and analyze what's going on.
Coaches can't help me anymore. I'm "there." They might be able to analyze my hand histories better... or teach me about PT4 functionality more... but other than that- they're not going to be telling me about anything I don't already know.
Matt Bolt is one of my favorite online players of all time. Go look up his videos. The simplicity he plays with is bar none. He does strange things sometimes, but his rationality for doing them always makes sense. He also publishes videos where villains show up with unlikely holdings... and I doubt he cherry picks his material.
That being said... nothing he says is really that crazy. It's no conclusion you couldn't have gotten to by yourself. He's not a brainiac. He might not have immense success- but he's in the tops.
Think about it like this... if you had a secret that earned you millions of dollars- would you share it for less than unlimited money? You wouldn't. The promises of like, "THIS POKER BOOK WILL REVOLUTIONIZE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT THE GAME" or that guy that was selling his .pdf for like $300... that stuff makes me laugh. Mersenneary's HU article is all you need to know to start crushing HU matches- and it's free. Nobody with secrets is hiding them anymore. It's all out. Supersystems was the first big outter of secrets (even though it's been criticized to hell and back)
None of this involves GTO playing. The idea that I raise into you and you draw up a mental matrix in your mind and click call because you should be calling 32% of the time in this situation... that's ludicrous. I don't think anyone or their dog could possibly think or play like that, and to try and use your brain on that level would involve such a high intellect that I doubt you'd waste it on poker.
So yea, that's why I don't like the whole nash equilibrium thing.