https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1JWNRL...s%2C301&sr=8-1

who do you figure is the ideal demographic for this book?

Looks to be another winner!

First, this is not a 2+2 book, but why are you so negative? Over the years we helped a lot of authors get started because we felt their manuscripts were quite good and deserved to be published, and we sometimes did this knowing that it was unlikely the book would be profitable.

Also, when we owned this website, which we did for 23 years, we never charged a user like yourself to participate here, and the current owners have continued this policy. Yet, you're quick to attack us when we post about something that should be worthwhile to many people who will see this thread.

Mason

This not being a 2+2 book and the 2+2 forums being free has nothing to do with his post.

I know you guys post about your new books here and I think the current owners allow it as a courtesy/out of respect for you guys. But this thread tells us nothing about the book whatsoever. When you advertise yours here, you at least give a brief synopsis. This one is literally just a link to Amazon and complete spam.

Maybe it would be better for David to tell us a little about it rather than just posting a link to go buy it.

You did good (like you mention) and you did bad (like advertising lock poker after it was a known scam). People decide for themselves if the good outweighed the bad. I think a lot of people feel your management was quite unethical and your low limit book is somewhat unethical (new players won't realize some of the claims are arguably unsubstantiated). You also don't take criticism well even when it's good faith and valid. I think that explains most of the hostility you receive.

I'm tired of hearing about the Lock Poker stuff. We had a conversation with them where they asked for a little time to fix their problems, and we made it clear to them that if the problems weren't fixed in the time period that they suggested we would stop their advertising (at a loss to us) and that's exactly what we did. I don't know of anyone else who did that.

So coming on here and repeating garbage that others have claimed which is flat our wrong is bad.

MM

I was responding to your question "but why are you so negative?". If you didn't ask that, I wouldn't have brought it up. I think that and other examples are why people are negative. If you management was overwhelming adored, people would be more positive.

Perhaps David will do that. This book is a rewrite and expansion of Probability and Statistics for 12-Year-Olds (and Maybe You): Plain English Simply Explained, Lessons and Ideas for Students, Gamblers, and Decision Makers by David Sklansky which was discussed on these forums. But again, the new version is not a 2+2 book.

Mason

I give up.

MM

1. In spite of spending many hours assisting with various aspects of this book. Mason is getting zero dollars. In fact, he is costing himself money, at least in the short run, because he is taking the books predecessor, where he was getting royalties, off the market to prevent people from buying a book whose information is part of the new book.

2. I considered my OP an announcement rather than an advertisement. I'm not sure what the rules are but I assume if that announcement had been written by someone besides myself it would have been OK. But I purposely didn't elaborate on what was in it because that elaboration is instantly available when the amazon link is clicked on.

3. There are readers who may not have known that this book exists who would want to know it exists. If telling those people it exists is something I am allowed to do, then why wouldn't I? This is not a poker book. Poker books sometimes contain information that is debatable or even provably wrong. This is a math book that differs from other math books only in the way the concepts are explained. University of Georgia professor Justin Conrad and I bent over backwards to explain things in a simpler way than even books like Probability For Dummies does. And to answer post 2 above, it is mainly targeted towards gamblers and college students (who are forced to take a statistics course even though their major is non STEM) who need to know the basics without wading through rigorous explanations that other authors and teachers feel obligated to utilize.

Calling it an announcement doesn't change the fact that it's an advertisement for your product and there's a rule against self-promotion. Otherwise the forum would be spammed by people linking to their own products. Not even charities are allowed to be announced here, as per the infamous spat between DNegs and Mason. The whole spat revolved around a charity not being allowed to be announced by DNegs (although it turned out to be run by scammers, this was not known at the time the announcement was prohibited).

Unless we made an exception from people we knew, we had a no asking for money policy. I think the reason is obvious, and the scam you refer to was an example.

By the way, I had my own foundation where I gave away a bunch of my own money and never promoted it on this website.

MM

The rules can be found here:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...osting-258975/

Cliff note: that announcement wouldn't have been OK unless written by you, Mason or anyone else with a red user name.

That said, since it's OK for you to do that, there's really no need to discuss it any further. So please everyone just focus on the content of the announced book.

I do want to follow up on this. Even though David and I are no longer owners of this site, we do want to see it continue to be successful and we try to do things that will benefit the users of this site. For example, I have given away many free books, usually as Amazon kindles, that many people here have taken advantage of. I also plan to continue to do this at various times in the future.

As another example, I posted my complete book Cardrooms: Everything Bad and How to Make Them Better. And for one more example, we gave away over 100 printed copies of The Theory of Poker: Applied to No-Limit by David Sklansky and this includes mailing them to those who got the book.

Mason

I didn't want to imply you or David have any bad intentions or break any rules on purpose.

Since David addressed it, I just wanted to point out that the rules do cover the question of threads that only consist of a link and what a mod would do if someone else started a thread like that.

Almost all of our claims are of the "if...then" variety. The logic concept behind them is substantiated. We make it clear that how often the "if" applies depends on your game.

I feel like you guys have had to defend the last couple book releases and I’m wondering if you’ve noticed an uptick in critics focusing on theory.

I’m sure there have always been questioning people but do you find more critics of theory since the number of resources available for learning the game have increased?

I was referring to things like this. I think you would need to run simulations to substantiate the claim that the EV is higher, when really it seems more like an educated guess based on a back of the napkin calculation. I think it would at least merit a disclaimer of some sort or more in depth calculation, otherwise it's just teaching beginners to jump to conclusions.

There is also a wider problem of people coaching without showing their results. I think if you're writing books, there should at least be some proof offered that you are beating the games. Otherwise, you're teaching people to be gullible.

if the author makes claims but refuses to show their work, then you can assume there is a high likely hood the work was not done to back up the claims.

These types questions should be on other threads. As far as I am concerned, poker, poker site rules, and other things of that nature pale in comparison to the goal of helping people who struggle with rigorous books or teachers, learn probability and statistics. I'm glad I wrote about poker because it resulted in a renowned professor approaching me regarding writing a book for those who don't understand the harder ones. Any other reason is almost irrelevant to me. This thread should be about whether the new book achieved that goal and nothing else. So I will not respond further to that other stuff on this thread.

damn yall musta made a killing off of lock poker

Good for them if they did. Not good for you if you lost money.

If you want to discuss that with David or Mason, please send them a PM. This thread is about the book.

I don't think so. There has always been a small number of critics, and this goes back to the very beginning of this site in 1997 and before that on RGP.

I learned many years ago that when you're very successful, there will always be a small number of people who take shots at you. That's just the way it is.

Mason

I'm asking in good faith, is either Skansky or Mallmuth willing to provide even an excel graph showing their sample size, winrate, stakes, etc? I'm talking any significant results whatsoever. This would be asked of any regular user making claims similar to yours. No reasonable person thinks you would falsify such data, so a simple screenshot of an excell sheet would suffice.

If you cannot provide any such data, you're essentially saying...
a) You have never bothered to track your poker results in any way shape or form, or
b) You have but are willing to show even basic heresay info like sample size, winrate, stakes, etc.

If you cannot provide any proof or further details whatsoever, I can honestly say it would be gulliable to think it's anything good.

Nonetheless, I respect Mason and David, certainly they are honorable compared to the average person. But it really doesn't sit right with me that you guys are so evasive about results. This is BASIC stuff.