The straddle does not necessarily double the stakes since the chip stacks don't change. But it can turn some hands into a short-stack contest.

Mason

The printed book should be up on Amazon around the middle of December, to be followed by the kindle about two weeks later.

Mason

If I understand your point, you're asking for calculations of an opinion. I don't think that makes sense.

Mason

Would be interested in the rationale for not raising or 3!ing in clear spots. I would rather occasionally raise or 3! light than miss standard raises.

You don't see the limp/3! much now, particularly at 2/5 NL and above. I kind of like that play, but there are problems with it. Even if you are balanced and doing it sometimes with suited connectors or whatever, opponent are going to expect AA/KK is a big part of your range. They will probably rarely fold small pp they limped in with. Then if it is a fairly dry board, they will think there is a good chance you have a big pp and try to stack you if they can beat AA.

I don't like the fold to one bet on J97 either. It isn't a great situation, but I wouldn't just fold right way, and the same if I had raised preflop.

This is just the first part of the Introduction. A whole book will follow.

Mason

I do think that it is time for a good book reflecting the changes in LLSNL since Ed Miller wrote his book. An issue with Miller's book is the same with this book, which is observer effect. The mere fact that you or David are playing changes the condition of the table. Some of the players at your table recognize you both immediately and they will spread the word frequently to the other players. They will play you differently than the average LLSNL player. While I'm not saying there is no value, it does diminish the value. If you had coached an unknown to play this way, the results would have been more unbiased.

Just so you know, when young, I spent 6 years working as a mathematical statistician for the US Census Bureau and then 5 years doing similar work for Northrop (now Northrop-Grumman). So I'm well aware as to data analysis.

Mason

Which Ed Miller book are you meaning? Hasn't he written a lot of books that are in general for small stakes NL players?

While I disagree with limping kings in the exact spot mentioned especially in 1/2 nl where people just over limp, you're making an argument for limp raising not one against it.

People raising and never folding PPs prefop is good for you.

With that said-
I love theory of poker. It's a great book.

I've never played NL with Slansky. I have played plo with him 4-5 times for a couple of hours each time in the 5/5 rock games at aria and wynn. I'm not sure he even saw ten flops total in those games. While it's a different game I'm sure he's also a giant giant nit in NL as well so I doubt he giving great NL advice for 2023 even for 1/3 NL.

Yeah, I meant that both ways. Probably is a 1/3 game they will incorrectly call with pps. However, it may be deep enough and multiway enough that they are getting odds.

to go for a lrr after 5 limpers the guy to your left would have to be literally in the middle of raising out of turn for it to be correct. a better play is to make sort of a comically big 13x raise and laugh as you get called n 3 spots. you can basically just lrr yourself because the guy who limped w/77 isn't fuqqing folding.

Playing nitty in a game where you pay $10/round in blinds and the pots are huge may not be a losing approach.

There may be good explanations in the book for these plays, but putting them in the Introduction without explanation makes the book look bad.

Limping kings and then folding them on the flop.

Live poker ain’t dead!

In general teaching people to be more aggressive is easier than teaching people how to trap. These examples are all situational one even relies on people to his left to be aggressive to open the action which isn’t always typical in small stakes live games so surprised you are advocating people who are learning to implement these type of plays. Playing like this creates difficult decision points later on in hands as well which is not really addressed (most people reading your book aren’t folding kk on that flop correctly). I guess this book is designed for people who have a lot experience to think about situations they autopilot more critically??? Very small market size and probably going to be misused by majority of the readers IMO.

I have to agree here with the literal legend of poker. As soon as I read that I thought of the very few times I limped behind in late position with hands like KK or QQ and the only time I did it was when I saw a player to my left loading up a raise.

There's nitty and there's 3-5 vpip nitty.

The example was chosen by Mason to accentuate how far out of the box plays, can sometimes be contemplated. Mason likes to be flamboyant, so he mentioned a play I rarely make to make clear the out of the boxness the best NLH play might be and the fact that we will occasionally talk about such plays in the book.

Meanwhile there is another play that I believe has conventional wisdom associated with it that I am thinking about. I would appreciate it if posters here would verify that it is indeed conventional wisdom and whether you agree with it.

If you are dealt QQ, KK, or AA and somehow knew you could get four typically skilled small stakes players to put in $!5 against you (with $285 behind) or only one opponent for $25 (with $275) you would choose the latter alternative. Is that generally what is thought? Are there exceptions in your mind or in the minds of good players?

Yes that is what's generally thought.

There aren't any significant exceptions in my mind. Maybe some weird situation with a promotion.

I do like multiway, as the other players will be worse at multiway than HU, but I wouldn't go to this extreme.

Yes, this is the consensus, because splitting equity between 4 other players significantly lowers your chances of winning the hand. Getting heads up with a shallow SPR with a premium hand is an amazing spot to be in.

The Course. It was aimed at the 1/3 player like this books seems to be aimed at.

I'd rather go five-ways to the flop against average opponents if the alternative single caller is massively tight. Or if the entire table is drunk. But these seem obvious to me.

Here is a better example (compared to the deep limp with two kings) of the book advocating against conventional wisdom. The chapter is named The Power of Aces.

Let's start this chapter with a question. In a 1-3 game you are under the gun with a pair of aces. Your stack is $250 which is about the same as your opponents. You somehow know that if you made it $15 to go you would get four typically skilled callers and if you made it $25 to go you would get only one such caller. Assume no rake. After taking into account future betting, which would you say is the better play EV wise, making it $15 or $25? Please answer before reading further.

If you are familiar with general poker precepts, you will know that multiple opponents generally reduce the EV of high pairs even though there is more money to be won. So is this an exception? Could making it $15 be the better play? Yep. And it's not even really that close.

First of all, this concept regarding multiple opponents can be simply illustrated by noting if your hand has a 50% chance of beating one opponent it tends to mean that it has about a 1/2 x 1/2 chance of beating two. But that's only 25% or 3-1 against, while you are only getting 2-1. Their hands average to about 37.5 % each. Your made hand would generally need to be over 55% to be profitable against two different types of drawing hands that would be 45% against you heads up.

If your aces were about 75 percent against each caller individually and there were no future bets your EV against one $25 caller would be $12.50 (since you would be ahead $50 on average after four contests.) Against four callers your chances of being best is about one third, so if the bet was $15 you would win $60 once and lose $15 twice for an EV of $10. Therefore, in this case you would rather have just one opponent.

Except that aces are not 75 percent against each caller. When you take into account that one or more of them is apt to have an ace, it's more like 85%. That means you will beat all four of them about half of the time. That's an EV of about $22.50. Heads up against the $25 caller an 85% shot has an EV of only $17.50. So, it seems that you would want the four callers.

"But wait" you might be saying to yourself. With four callers it is much more likely to get a caller or two when you bet the flop. A caller who probably has position on you and almost two hundred dollars left if you make a standard flop bet. But if you are thinking that's bad for the aces you need to think harder. Almost all the flop calls will be made by top pair, an overpair, maybe middle pair, or a draw. If you bet something like $50 on the flop and at least $100 on the turn I would hope it is obvious that the great majority of the time those extra bets add to your all in EV rather than subtract. from it.

Yes, you will lose the pot more often if you let four rather than one play against you. But if stacks aren't large, not nearly often enough to make it important to thin the field to "protect" that powerful starting hand.

I can't believe you actually wrote this, this shows a complete fundamental lack of understanding of multiway equity. Did you only look at a small pocket pair vs two overcard hands with no overlap e.g. 22 vs QJss and 87dd? What do the equities look like 3 ways with JTs vs 22 and 88?

There is a problem with the Introduction. Even if those are great out of the box plays, they are all tight plays, so it makes a bad impression.

There are issues with raising large with big hands at 1/3. It is so common to do that. Typically amateur players will do it. So opponents can put you on an overpair or AK for TPTK based on later action, and fold when they are beat and extract the maximum when they are ahead. Most of the players are not that good to exploit that fully and consciously, but there are issues with giving out so much information.

A massive massive +1

Did Sklansky just use napkin math to prove that AA prefers 4 callers to 1 caller? Without understanding concepts like position and implied odds?

This excerpt sounds like it was written in 1975, and it would probably not be bad for that time period. The problem is, it's 2023. We have Multiway solvers. AA NEVER wants 4 callers compared to 1 caller if given the option between the two, this has literally already been proven to high confidence levels.

Sklansky, you don't understand multiway pots. There are MULTIPLE equilibria in MW pots, that means one person can unilaterally increase or decrease your EV and you may have zero defense vs that strategy. You can't just say they add up to 50%. And you can't assume you automatically get to showdown.

Go read Noam Brown's research paper for when he programmed pluribus to understand how solvers work but napkin math is not how you prove AA is better 4 ways than 1. You don't just add up some numbers PREFLOP and then assume a flop/turn/river and all your opponent's actions.

Sigh