some people want poker to be like blackjack that you apply some rules. It is possible you could look at how fish play from statistics, but online does not apply to live, and then you have to figure out what adjustments to make. To get anything comparable online, you would need to look at really low stakes 15 or so years ago.

Anyone who claims to play GTO at 1/3 doesn't know what they are talking about. At higher stakes, it is important to have a good understanding of GTO, which is partly why there are not many high stakes NLHE public games. Knowing GTO may help at 1/2, 1/3, or 2/5, but you if you try to play GTO, it is not going to work out so well. GTO assumes HU pots without a lot of limpers, etc.

I am sure it is a good book. However, it is unfortunate the authors are reduced to writing a low stakes book. Regardless of whether it is reasonable to grind 1/3, you are not going to make good money doing that. The money to be made from poker is way down, with online games dying.

I assisted my significant other with a business statistics class last year.

Relearning stuff I hadn't seen in decades gave me a greater appreciation for the math found in 2+2 books.

Also, it's clear there are people ITT who have not read, or retained any knowledge from 2+2 books. Some of things you guys are trying to nail Mason and David on, have been discussed at length in various texts over the years. I have even pointed to specific books, and specific page numbers in-said book, ITT. *shoulder shrug*

the issue is that he is giving very bad advice and then charging people for it, and he cannot answer simple questions that a true poker expert who writes books and gives advice can easily solve.

******

"Our approach is not looking to make lots of great plays where you may steal a pot or knock a player out who, if he had stayed in, might have beaten you on a later street. We’re also not interested in constantly balancing our strategy and putting our opponent(s) at an “indifference point.” The experts can worry about that stuff, and if that’s your approach, play the higher stakes or perhaps limit hold ’em where recognizing small edges is highly important. But if you simply want to let your opponents give you their money, we’ll show you how to do it.

A Few Examples

(Again, these examples show you only a small number of the many ideas we will soon tell you about.) To see what we’re talking about, here are five examples. Notice that in every one of these hands, we’re playing differently, and sometimes very differently, from the way most poker instructors, coaches, book authors, poker video content producers, etc., will tell you how to play. It's true that, in general, their advice may be reasonably good, especially against tougher players than those we’ll be addressing. But it won’t be well targeted for these small stakes games. And if you’re playing live, these are the vast majority of games that are spread in our public cardrooms.

Example No. 1: Here’s a hand that David played in a Las Vegas $1-$3 game. It’s an extreme example, but we want to start with it to show how different many of the strategies in this book are and to give you an idea of how different, in some situations, our approach to maximizing your expectation is from the typical player, and this includes most of those who are currently having some success in live $1-$2, $1-$3, $2-$5, and similar no-limit hold ’em games.

In a $1-$3 no-limit game, David was dealt the

K K

two positions to the right of the button. The first four players limped in and David only called. The next two players folded, the small blind called, and the big blind checked."


*******

this is a terrible strategy and the authors are either unaware or they are aware and are charging because they need the money.


Over limping KK after four players have limped in is not a good strategy. It may be one of the worst ways you can play the hand preflop. It is not consisnten with good advice or with any of the claims made previously.

the only reason to post the KK hand is to show how bad of a move that is and to explain why. If that is not clear to you then I dont know what to tell you. Specifically at the wynn 1/3 my buddy makes $36hr over like 3k hours since covid. He studies GTO, plays GTO online, and gets coaching.

All of this advice that you guys think is right, is wrong. It is the blind leading the blind. There is a reason that the authors of these books only play very low stakes around las vegas.

Given that you're still digging yourself out of makeup playing 1/3, perhaps you should rethink passing judgement on the advice given in a book yet to be published.

Uh oh, thems fighting words

Better brush up on HU

Cadillac of poker 20 years ago ago maybe.

In 2023 whatever the most boring car there is out there is the car NL is.

NLH will soon be the Tesla of poker.

If only PW were to do the same.

Nlh is the two card poker of poker

Yeah, it's boring and partly solved. I like PLO and mixed games much better.

😂😂😂

Yes that’s how this works

This is your problem, you've created a strawman argument, then attacked said strawman.

I suppose some people read books seeking what to think.

Others read books, in efforts to learn how to think.

I also like the smell of their books

Mason, you never replied to this but please use same paper as Split Pot 4AP

Cadillac of poker games when Brunson wrote that 50 years ago and Cadillac was the Cadillac of cars. Then NLHE was usually mid-high stakes, not like 1/2 NL now. Then most of the games in the US were limit poker.

PERSONALLY THNK IF YOU HAVE TO DRIVE 2.5 HOURS roudn trip to play live its not worth to do so unless its once a month or youhave money to blw

or you can crush and do crush

40$ after all that ? on avg thats still +compared to the pool

Most people pay for entertainment

You got paid

respectfully disagree about the KK take, exclusively ISOing a tighter range is fine, likely that limping behind with a wider range of hands including some traps is also fine

depends on how you play postflop, strictly from a GTO perspective if we were able to solve this spot pre while nodelocking 4 limps, if we don’t get to limp KK with 4 players behind to act it would be a very negligible ev loss

Post #185 in this thread by deuce. Still hates the book that has not been released.

As covered earlier, it's not really the point (or feasible) to tell people how to make a boatload of cash at 1/3, and that does not seem to be the authors' intent anyway. It's for people who want to play 1/3 because it's relatively stress free and fun, and those people would prefer to make more money as opposed to less money while they are doing it, and the book expressly is trying to help people do that. No one is trying to pay off the mortgage at 1/3, but it's always more fun to win a little than lose a little. There are a TON of people that fit into that category, so to me it seems like a feasible audience to address when your goal is to sell some books, and not to please every malcontent on a poker forum.

Readin this thread it's been crazy to me that so many people just don't get this exact point. This is the majority of 1/3 players. If I'm ever in Vegas playing 1/3 this is exactly the reason why.

I still remember driving with a friend down to AC to play $2/$4 limit holdem

“Only 2 more hours to go!”

Damn it was exciting like an out of body experience

To this day I still get a twinge of excitement when I first walk into the casino and hear the slot machines going.

going down that escalator and seeing the Taj poker room to your right and all your friends getting giddy was an awesome thing to watch

I remember driving from MD to the Taj to play 10/20 and occasionally 20/40 LHE. The excitement would build the closer we got and always wondering if we would ever see Chan there lol. This was circa 1999. I remember being there one day and hearing guys talking about this crazy 5/5 Pot Limit Holdem game at the Trop, as NLHE was not really a thing yet. I still remember racing down to the Trop with a friend of mine. We were in our late 20's and sit down with a bunch of grisly looking older guys the likes of Nicki (connected I believe, and ended up getting banned from every casino in NJ), motorcycle Mike (who died a few years later), Rocco (still doing very well for himself at the Borgata NLHE games last I saw a few years ago), etc. The stares we got as we must have looked so out of place to everyone else lol. Good times...

As to the KK hand, I just want to confirm that people here agree limping is the better play than raising if:

All stacks are $300

If I raised to $12 all will call but not if the raise is much more.

At least one player yet to act is known to be someone who raises fairly often.

If I flat call, there is a 35% chance that someone behind me will raise to $15-$20 and probably be called by all.

If that raise happens and I choose to raise to about 2.5 times what it was raised to it will probably be called by all.

If I raised to $12 there is less than a ten percent chance I will be three bet.

In other words, would it be true that if you disagree with the play it is because you disagree with at least one of the assumptions\? (Or, I suppose because you somehow think that a lower EV play should be chosen for the sake of future hands.)

A raise to 12 at 4 limpers in 1/3 would be unusual. More standard would be to make it about 20. You don't mind thinning the field and building the pot with this hand or most of your range. 3!ing to 50 after a raise to 20 and 3 or 4 calls would be really weird. It would be a really bad play, because you would be turning your hand somewhat face up without building the pot enough. I wouldn't make a 3! size that causes everyone to fold, but you need to make it closer to pot. You might want to make it look like you were trying to take the pot preflop or on the flop with some marginal limping hand.