I just received my book today, and have just finished the first 50 pages. I think it is of course very well written, and the math seems spot on. However, I think you advocate folding too much. One specific example in which I cannot think of any top PLO player in the world that would ever even consider folding (page 48):

PLO hand (stacks are very deep)- Hero Ah9h6s5s

Flop Qh7d2h - Villain (good player) bets pot (I assume you are in position) and you advocate folding.

Again - I just think that it is zero percent that the Galfond/Ike/Jungle/Sauce's of the world would ever even think to fold.

Just got my copy today, so I consider it a birthday gift! I will start reading first thing in the morning and taking notes. I will post my review before the end of the week! Thanks again!

The point I was trying to make with that example is that you don't use your chances of making your hand with two cards to come if you won't see both cards. In PLO if you were up against an almost certain set on the flop and you were almost sure that your opponent would check-fold if the flush card came on the turn but bet the pot otherwise, you should indeed fold on the flop with your ace high flush draw. The three players that you named are not usually in games where such assumptions could be made with near certainty. But if they were, they would of course think about folding the flop.

(I should have made it clearer that the hand would be heads up and that a tight bettor bet into many players all of whom folded. A revision for the next edition.)

I have to respectfully disagree with your analysis. Since you are up for making revisions, I would honestly remove this hand altogether to illustrate your point as I believe it is unrealistic and incorrect.

I have played a lot of PLO, and I don't think there is a single PLO player that would fold this flop (or should) based on how the hand was described. PLO is a game of draws, and hero flopped a top end draw (nut flush), with some good disguised back door straight cards potentially on the turn, and is deep, and is in position.

This is a great situation in PLO. Since you are certain the villian has QQ, couldn't he also have some Kx (KJ/K10) of heart type hands that you could get some value from if the flush card hits?

You stated the villain is a "good" player and this is pot limit, not no limit. Even if the turn brings in a non-board pairing flush card, the villain would almost certainly just check call since he can only face a "small" pot sized bet and draw at his 10 outs to improve (particularly when deep).

You wanted feedback, and it is my contention that no PLO player would ever fold this flop as the hand is described, and no trainer in PLO would suggest to their students to fold a nut flush draw in position when deep.

The main problem with my example was that I carelessly gave the flush draw lots of backdoor straight draws. Without any of them the problem almost completely reduces to getting two to one on a 3.5 to one shot if you can be certain he has a set and will either push out the draw if it misses the turn or if not, get out himself if the flush bets what he is supposed to. Given those parameters its an easy fold and the coaches you mentioned would agree.

However those parameters come up infrequently so I will be changing the example as you suggest.

MEANWHILE it might be interesting to note that there are hands that should call on the flop against a player like this (with deep stacks) who you are sure has three queens. Namely a set of sevens or deuces. Do you see why?

As for the original point you were trying to convey, I think a better example might be in nlhe where 5 players see a flop, and the flop is monotone (say 3 diamonds), and the tight "good" player leads, the 3 players next to act fold, and you hold just the naked Ace of diamonds.

In this instance, if you are never going to try to bluff on later streets and a 4th diamond will always make the villain fold and you get no value from hitting your flush, I could see where a fold could be a viable play.

As for why on a board of Q 7 2, and you are sure your opponent holds top set, you would want to hold middle or bottom set, sure. I will bite. Why would it be beneficial to hold middle/bottom set?

Because you win two pots with ten turn cards and oodles more with one. Combined they easily make up for the one pot loss when you call and turn a blank.

I bought this book back in 2019 when it came out. I never finished it.

I'm going to start from the beginning and read it and then I'll post a review.

This is logically inconsistent. If you're offered 2-1 when you're 3.5-1 against hitting the flush card and successfully bluffing we wouldn't want to do this either. If you're saying you're very very very deep and your opponent will pay off your quads every time to counteract for that and fold to every flush card OK but that's incredibly narrow for any practical use.

Just received my copy. Looking forward to reading it. The original "hold Em Poker for Advanced Players" is one of my favorites. It helped me at limit poker
a ton. Hoping this is just as valuable for No-Limit.

Will be posting my thoughts soon.

Thank-you !

Jelloman

How much more $ to print in 2 color (red/black)?

I think the same paper can be used. I would appreciate it when looking at the card images/suit symbols.

It depends exactly how the printing is done and I'm not sure of the answer. But if you look at Amazon print on demand costs it can easily be five times as much to print a four color process book as opposed to just using black ink.

Best wishes,
Mason

About 50 pages in. So at this rate Ill be done around end of July.

Right, I am aware 4 color is substantially more $ than 1 (or 2) color, for multiple reasons.

I only brought it up because 2 color is much less than 4 color, how much I don't know. And 2 colors makes it much easier to read the inages/symbols.

Basically, 4 color uses CMYK which is a composite of very small individually colored dots making up text or an image in any desired shade. To make 4 color work for primarily text the dots need to be extremely fine resolution, or reading becomes difficult on the eyes as it is blurred because of the dots. Books have no need for CMYK because they are virtually all text. If color photos are needed they are usually printed separately with special paper, and bound in the middle of the book.

2 color on the other hand does not use CMYK and the composite dot pattern. Its basically black text with the occasional red highlight, with no shading in between.

Its just an interesting puzzle. In real life you would almost never know for sure you were against top set.

In real life, for sure you are not against only top set when facing a pot sized bet, but against a range that contains the 3 sets, top 2 + flush blockers, the nut flush draw.
Now the questions are: what is your calling range ? do you have a raising range ?

This is an interesting question but the discussion of it would derail this thread.

David, I am a big fan of yours for over 30 years and own many of your books. (including the original Theory of Poker) You certainly belong in the Poker Hall of Fame.

I recently finished this book on loan from the library. However, I must say I did not find much of added value compared to your excellent NL Holdem: Theory and Practice with Ed Miller. I consider myself a solid winning, knowledgeable player even though I still play mostly $1-3NL (and $2-$5NL in the past). I have re-read your book with Miller several times to keep the excellent ideas fresh. This one, however, I feel is just a one and done.

I did like the added detail on the Sklansky-Chubukov ratings and how they relate to Bill Chen's ratings.

I think it was good to point out to deviate from GTO in spots where it was more profitable to do so.

I didn't mind the quoting of the original text from Theory of Poker to set up how it should be applied to NL.

I think everyone should read your D.U.C.Y. which applies logic to everyday problem solving and has some nice Stupak stories. Also, I am glad to see Mason came out with Cardrooms: Everything Bad.

Best.

I'm a fourth of the way through my first reading. I always read straight through once and then revisit the more complex areas again. As a primarily PLO player, the aforementioned PLO hand stuck out to me as well. I do think there's value in the overall point and it's certainly worth thinking about how valuable your draws are against tighter post flop players.

I'm about 1/4 thru as well. The important point of the text is training the player on the thought process involved, which I believe the text does fairly well. Nit picking the examples misses that point.

Hi RedOak:

If you have any comments to make about my Cardrooms book we have another thread located here:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...ssion-1789897/

and would like to heat what you have to say. Also, David and I went over every word in the Cardrooms book to make sure that everything was said well.

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason,

I found some typos. Do you want those reported?

Hi PokerHero:

You can send them to me via a PM.

Thanks and best wishes,
Mason

Since this book's main goal is to translate the limit concepts of TOP to no limit it is inevitable that the translations will often coincide with concepts explained in NLHTP. But there are also quite a few ideas in this book not covered elsewhere. Meanwhile about 80% of TOP readers never read NLHTP so I couldn't let myself worry too much about the overlap.