Hi Everyone:

Despite what you might hear, the vast majority of Real Poker Psychology is not about Patricia Cardner. In fact, the book contains many ideas/topics which I don't believe have been published anyplace else before.

However, the last full chapter of the book is called "Recent Erroneous Concepts" where material from Positive Poker: A Modern Psychological Approach To Mastering Your Mental Game by Dr. Patricia Cardner with Jonathan Little gets a good look. Here is the introduction to that chapter:

And here are the first ten concepts from the Positive Poker book. The concepts are in bold and my commentary follows. All comments and criticisms are welcome:

Best wishes,
Mason

It's not about her but you dedicate an entire chapter to bashing her work.

You come off as pretty insecure in this instance. If your book is that good, you shouldn't need to resort to ripping potential competitors to prop it up. It should stand on its own merits and speak for itself.

Bob:

So I write a book that, where appropriate, gives credit to those who have done good work in this area and questions others who in my opinion have produced highly questionable work. And you do realize that that's the way it should be.

Now here's the index entry for Cardner that appears in Real Poker Psychology (and not counting the index, the book is 242 pages in length).

But I find myself reading statements (from Twitter) like:

which isn't true. (Did you know that five of the books where I have a co-author that person was a women -- Four with Lynne Loomis and one with Donna Harris [and another author].)

Yet nothing is said in anyway about the material that appears in Real Poker Psychology. So I posted some of it here and open it up to all comments, both positive and negative. Where is the problem?

Mason

I'll have go....I think you fundamental point that working on improving you game is undoubtedly true, but.

Confidence - this is clearly a double edged sword, but so long as you don't stray into overconfidence, more must surely be a good thing. In all sports confidence plays an important part. When low on confidence you start doubting/ questioning yourself, and you lose fluidity in your game - and ultimately you don't apply your skills as well as you could.

Goal Setting - I think this seems to be a useful way of creating a road map to improving your skills - i.e my plan is to work on skill x today, skill y tomorrow. I will make efforts at the next game to apply this skills, and I will review the application of this after the event. Goal setting is generic to most improvement I would have thought

Concentation - I can't see any argument against concentrating when you are playing. If you didn't need to concentrate you could play just as well drunk and stoned as sober. Plus if you are multitabling on line you ability to increase the number of tables must be some function which would include concentration (obviously as well as skill).

Sleep - again I can't see argument against this - a well rested mind will function better than one that isn't.

I don't really think any of the points above are rocket science, or indeed new. This is stuff that has been around for decades.

Hi Blunderer:

Thanks for your response my comments are embedded below.

There's a chapter in the book called "Self-Confidence" which is followed by a chapter in the book called "Over-Confidence."

I agree with you completely that in sports confidence is important and the losing of fluidity is certainly accurate. I know this all to well from playing tennis since I was a kid. But in poker, timing, speed, and coordination are not important. Furthermore, while knowledge is important in all sports, I believe it's much more important in poker. So I don't think this argument applies to poker.

Approaching goal setting in the way you have described above must be good. For instance, it's fun to play poker, especially if you're winning, and it's a lot less fun to study. So if your goal is to become a good player and it means you skip a night of play every so often to study/improve your game, than this is a good thing. But if setting goals is something like winning X amount of money in some period of time, then it's fairly worthless due to the large short term luck factor.

Obviously when playing poker you need to pay attention. But when playing a game like tennis and a hard hit ball is coming your way, just paying attention won't be good enough. So right here there is a big difference between poker and sports.

As for your "drunk or stoned comment," I don't know about the stoned part, but when drunk most people can't pay attention.

And for multi-tabling, here is Concept No. 70 from Real Poker Psychology (and this is not from Cardner's book).

Concept No. 70: When multi-tabling, watching a ball game and talking on Skype is detrimental to your long term results. The only way your expectation can be lowered is if you begin to play some of your hands differently than the way you would normally play them and this new strategy is inferior to what you normally use. In today’s Internet game, many players who multi-table on the Internet also use simple algorithmic strategies which are easy to remember and implement. So while it’s important to pay attention, you should be able to do that and multitask to some degree.

Obviously proper sleep is good for your long term health, and if you haven't slept for several days you won't be able to function as you should no matter what you do. But to play poker worst (better), it means that you must begin to play some of your hands differently and this new way of playing is inferior (superior). There's no disputing this statement. And I doubt that being tired, such as at the end of the day and you spot a very good game in the poker room with an open seat, if you'll now begin to play your hands differently.

I agree. Thanks again for taking The Cardner Challenge and feel free to comment in any way you like on my comments.

Best wishes,
Mason

While I agree with a lot of your comments, I also think that all of those concepts, other than intense concentration being a necessity, are fine if presented in the right way.

confidence: Obviously it's bad to be delusional about your skill level, but confidence doesn't have to mean irrational confidence. It can also mean objective confidence.

A person shouldn't usually be playing in a game in the first place if they aren't objectively confident that they have an edge in that game, and I think it really is important to maintain that confidence even when you are running bad or there are opponents that you never win a hand against. A lot of people go off the rails and build other players up to be gods in their mind when they're really not, or even worse, throw away all the work that they've done because they irrationally lose confidence in their process over some bad short term results.

goals: This one depends entirely on how it's presented. I agree with you that results-based goals can be pointless since setting those goals does nothing to make them actually happen. But, like someone else already said, that's not the only kind of goal that can be made. There's no reason that can't apply to your process for improvement and also no reason that your improvement can't be measured to some degree by your long term results.

sleep: I think you're just wrong about this one. Being tired absolutely makes a difference in how people play their hands. It will have less effect on a prolific grinder, but it has some effect on everyone. If this wasn't true, then it really would be best to constantly concentrate as much as possible, but that's just not efficient in most cases because it wears you down and you lose more due to deteriorated play than you gain from some extra small edges vs. pacing yourself and saving the intense concentration for times when you really need it.

Not only do people not notice or remember as much of what's going on around them when they're tired, but they're also more vulnerable to tilt and simple mistakes like misreading community cards or their own hand.

A good player in a good game can still have a pretty big edge anyway, but I don't really think it's even debatable that playing tired is a very tangible negative.

I agree with you that the food and health stuff is probably not a big deal, but who cares. That's pretty much my overall sentiment also. I don't really see why any of this is being called out.

You seem to be misguided on most of these topics. I hope the rest of your new book isn't equally misguided. That would be a shame.

Concept No. 3: Your results will improve “if you had more confidence in your skills.”

It seems you do not understand that knowing a strategy and implementing it are two different things. I suggest you listen to the recent Mindset Advantage podcast (10:45 into it) where top poker pro Fedor Holz discusses how he plays differently based on his level of confidence. While I do agree with you that in simple games like limit hold’em, shallow stacked no-limit hold’em, and tic-tac-toe you can shut your eyes and implement a basic strategy with a large amount of success, when you are playing in deep-stacked big bet games, especially against world-class players, lacking confidence will often lead you to making sub-optimal plays.

For example, in a tournament, if I think I am the worst player in the field, I should look to get my money in with any sort of decent equity, perhaps opting to take negative EV risks because I cannot expect better opportunities to come along in the future. If I assume I am the worst player in the tournament but I am actually the best, making this adjustment will lead to huge mistakes.

It should be clear that in Positive Poker, it is never stated that if you are bad at poker, being more confident will make you have better results. You took this statement completely out of context.

Concept No. 4: Setting goals is important to achieving success at the poker table.

Setting monetary goals and doing everything in your power to achieve them is obviously ridiculous. You used an example in an interview to the effect of someone setting a goal to win $100,000 by the end of the year but only being up $20,000 in November. Now he has to gamble super hard to get to his $100,000 goal. You could also misconstrue this concept to say if the guy is up $100,000 in March, he should quit for the year. If you think that is what the section on goal setting entails, you have a problem with reading comprehension or are deliberately being dense.

As an example of goal setting, a large number of poker professionals have a difficult time putting in volume. Setting volume goals is an excellent way to stay motivated to put in hours. Other players have a problem setting aside time to study. Study goals are also excellent.

You have again taken this concept blatantly out of context.

Concept No. 5: You need “to concentrate intently during games.”

This goes back to playing difficult games compared to playing simple games. It makes perfect sense that you would think you don’t need to concentrate, given you say most of your poker experience is from middle stakes limit hold’em.

You may be surprised to learn that if you are not paying attention, you will not pick up reads based on your opponents’ behaviors. You will also not know if someone is a super nit or a maniac. Concentrating is important unless you are attempting to implement a GTO strategy, which currently isn’t known in deep-stacked games and even then, almost certainly isn’t the way to win the most money possible.

Going back to the Mindset Advantage with Fedor, he laughs at your statement that focus is not needed and goes on to say it is the worst statement ever. He then says that everyone who is a professional would say this is just plain wrong. I completely agree with Fedor’s statement, as does essentially other world class professional, including, but certainly not limited to, Daniel Negreanu, Brian Rast, Terrance Chan, Isaac Haxton, Ed Miller, Mark Herm and many others (You can hear all of them discuss their thoughts on “mindset” in the previously mentioned podcast). Perhaps the reason you have developed your way of thinking is because you primarily discuss poker with out of touch players who play simple games?

When Fedor was asked about your statement that in sports you need focus because there is movement involved but in poker you don't because you are sitting down, he again laughs and replied that whoever said that never played poker. The host of the podcast correctly replied that you have actually played live limit for 40 years and fedor responded "I guess that's why people end up playing mid stakes stuff like that.”

As I stated in the in one of the many other threads you started to promote your book, you have legitimacy no experience playing high stakes big bet games. You have stated many times that the vast majority of your experience is in live middle stakes limit games. That simply isn’t the game that the vast majority of poker players play. I found it quite funny that you continuously say Cardner doesn’t know how to play poker well despite never playing with her. She has amassed $145,000 in live tournament winnings despite only playing in her spare time. I tried looking up your results on the various poker databases but I couldn’t find anything. Do you go by a different name when playing live? If you have $0 in tournament cashes, it seems insane that you have to confidence to think you have a clue about the mindset of any tournament player, especially world-class ones. Your statement about how blind confidence can be a bad thing certainly applies in this situation.

It should be obvious, but Positive Poker was written to help amateurs develop the mindset of high stakes professionals, not to try to get them thinking like a recreational middle stakes limit hold’em player. Again, the cited concept is taken out of context.

Concept No. 6: Successful players are self-confident.

If you look at the best players in the world, most of them are self-confident. This is simply a true statement. You mention that some bad players self-confident, which is also true, but obviously that doesn’t negate the fact that successful players are self-confident.

Concept No. 7: You need your brain to be firing on all cylinders.

This again goes back to your middle stake limit hold’em mentality. See Fedor on concentration from #5. It seems like you are trying to restate concepts using slightly different language to fill pages.

Concept No. 8: “Sleep deprivation reduces judgment and performance on complex tasks.”

If you don’t sleep well, you can’t focus well. This should be obvious to anyone who has ever stayed up longer than 18 hours. This again goes back to you applying your middle stake limit hold’em mentality to all forms of poker. Perhaps you are much more of a machine than everyone else?

I make sleep my main priority when traveling the high stakes tournament circuit. I get on the correct sleep schedule for whatever time zone I am going to before I leave. I make a point to get to sleep at least 10 hours before my next tournament starts. I know for a fact that I focus better when I sleep well. Of course, if you think focus is irrelevant, then you don’t need to sleep. You might as well play drunk and on drugs too.

Concept No. 9: Eating grains will make you want to go back to sleep.

This is accurate.

Concept No. 10: Eat your food without the unhealthy sauce, tortillas, etc.

If you eat healthy food, your brain functions better compared to when you eat unhealthy food. This has been proven over and over. This again goes back to you using the incorrect mentality for no-limit hold’em.

Concept No. 11: “Many top poker players are in excellent shape.”

This is accurate. Fedor also discusses this in the podcast episode. He discusses how he feels refreshed when he works out and mediocre when he doesn’t. If you look at the best players in the world, almost all of them are in excellent shape. I can guarantee that if I didn’t have to work out to be in excellent shape, I wouldn’t work out. I don’t enjoy it. However, I realize it helps me feel good and think clearly, which in turn helps me play better poker. I treat it as part of the job. Given you are out of shape and overweight, it boggles my mind how you can confidently state that being in shape isn’t useful. Perhaps this goes back to the over-confidence issue you seem to have.

Concept No. 12: Keep “accurate records of all the hands you play.”

Looking at the high stakes no limit forum on 2+2, over 2/3 of the posts on the first page are hand history review questions. I imagine the other forums are similar. You have mentioned that you should learn a set of tactics that you can then apply to all situations. This works great for simple games, like tic-tac-toe and limit hold’em, but it fails miserably at big bet games.

I want to make it as clear for you as possible that no one is saying you should ignore learning to play fundamentally sound poker. Roughly 90% of my large body of poker educational content is devoted to teaching people to play fundamentally sound. You seem to have taken the fact that Dr. Cardner wrote a book on mindset to mean that she thinks it is all that matters, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. The main disagreement seems to be that you think mindset accounts for almost nothing whereas she thinks it counts for much more than nothing. I, along with basically every other high stakes professional, agrees that mindset is significant, especially once you are competing at a high level. If you ever make it to the high levels, or even discuss poker with people who regularly succeed at the high levels, this will become obvious to you.

+1 mirrion

/thread

Ban OP

There you go with your insults again.

I'm short of time at the moment and will only address Confidence. You wrote:

Concept No. 3: Your results will improve “if you had more confidence in your skills.”

Of course I understand this and there is much discussion on this exact topic in Real Poker Psychology. You don't need speed, timing, and coordination in poker. But what you do need is knowledge which includes a good understanding of strategic play. Here's an excerpt from the "Self-Confidence" chapter in my book.

You wrote:

You keep saying that limit hold 'em is a simple game, but that's not the case and in many ways it's more complex than no-limit hold 'em because it's much more difficult to control the pot odds that your opponents will receive. Also, if you think it's simple, I suggest you spend some time with the two books that we published written by Philip Newall which are books that you can spend numerous hours studying.

You wrote:

I hope you realize that this idea was first written up by David Sklansky in his book Tournament Poker for Advanced Players which was first published by 2+2 14 years ago. It's also a fairly simple idea that until the publication of this book was only understood by a small number of tournament players.

No. It's full of stuff like this. Here's another example from the "Erroneous Concepts" chapter in Real Poker Psychology: (Please notice the concept is a direct quote from Positive Poker.)

MM

Hey, guys.
I've read a couple of poker mindset books and I love Jareds Tendler books. I've read those by chapter 20+ times.

I've read dozens of other psychology and discipline books, watched a lot of videos.

I also run mindset group for two years. We had at least 75 meetings total.

I will review this from Jared book perspective because I am very well familiar with it:

I completely disagree with author and I will put My explanations here:
False. Jared doesn't say this. Actually, he explains causes and reasoning and when confidence hurts when it helps. It looks like that those words are targeting just recreational player- not a professional one.

Jared talks a lot about goals. He also identifies different types of goals and what benefits or drawbacks those have. Also when Object oriented goals (the goals that this book author talks about) can benefit a poker player. It is obviously that new book sucks very hard when it is talking about goals.

Concentration is a great topic and Jared covers that too. Obviously, that new book doesn't. I guess an author didn't play poker before. I did. Up to 21 tables at once. Up to 12 hours. Who can maintain same concentration levels after such intense work? Even at other areas- pro drivers make crashes. And now some B**** say that concentration is not needed )
Ah. BTW- people are different... So maybe some can pay much more concentration, but some others are blown away by tilt/emotional issues and it is much harder to concentrate.

Maybe, author should watch some non-poker videos related to this topic because concentration is not related just to proficiency level. Actually, ability to concentrate it is skill itself!

Because when you play, You evaluate a lot of information. You evaluate your own mindset state, take appropriate actions. You evaluate how different players are, what adjustments you should make (deviation from GTO to use exploitative strategies). You think how leveling in this session altered your and opponent strategies. Also you want to be able to keep you concentration for prolonged period of the time. Maybe, author should buy Jareds books and take a look at concentration and A-C game profiles, what is playing in the zone. And for some ***** reason Jared Dedicated half of a second book for such "unimportant" topic.

What about those who are not excellent players yet? Excellent player would never buy that new mindset book. Does author suggest to ignore sleep deprivation and similar things, because it wouldn't be important for excellent player?. And you know what? That would lead to some increase in winrate = lower variance = less tilt issues + better confidence (oh yes, confidence is not needed...).

After reading this I started to wonder if I reply in the thread about poker mindset book ANd what PSYCHOLOGY book talks about this?

This topic is not importgant for online poker players. Everything is tracked automatically and analysis done with that data is not mindse but strategical topic.

-----------------
I get an impression, that Author read a just couple of ****ty books and base everything on that. A lot of offtopics are mixed in and it makes bad impression for me.

However I will download this book and will read it, because this topic is interesting for me and sometimes even in the pile of sh't you can find some gems (good ideas).

Good luck.

P.S. my concentration while writing this article has ended and *** those grammar mistakes that I made after that. :|

As far as I know, Jonathan Little aka fieryjustice has been pumping out books left and right. It does not take much research to find some critics claiming that he is a lot of fluff in his own book thread:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...8&postcount=95
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...5&postcount=82

Now I could be mistaken but Jonathan Little success mostly is in the tournament scene, this does not stop him from releasing cash game content. So while he may not realize the reference, in my opinion, he is basically the cashgame coaching equivalent to: YourDoom.

There also seems to be some controversy on the accuracy of his book reviews on amazon, where allegedly he gives the books at cheaper prices for favorable reviews. While none of this is 100% confirmed, I suggest you simply visit Jonathan Little's website, one almost feels overwhelmed by the marketing strategies. Buy now for 80% off, its usually $99.99 but if you buy in next 24 hours it will be only $14.99.

If you are a fan of Jonathan Little, you are most likely a beginner/intermediate tournament player, trying to improve and that is great, but as someone who has played a lot of poker when I see someone present the information in the manner he does alarm bells should go off. With that said, he can do whatever he wants and I honestly wish him the best, I am simply trying to educate the marketplace. If you find that you like his content and are a fan then knock yourself out. But now that much of the content he posts (w/ Patricia Cardner) after his 23rd book release comes into question: can I say that I am not surprised.

Poker does require attention, and short term memory slots.

Especially online poker.

You will be keeping track of players relative position, tendencies and actions. You will have to assess ranges how they connect with flops and how they will respond to bets. Even visualising your own range in spots is something that can take up all your available focus.

Tiredness, emotional spikes and even low glucose levels are all proven to impact negatively on attention, memory and decision making.

Poker is to big a beast for the correct play to be stored and easily applied. You will play hands differently when tired and unable to be fully focused on all tables or when your glucose levels are low and your decision making is impacted.

For example when completing a complex mental task you are less likely to show self control / discipline. This has been shown in many studies. It comes up in the real world where you will be less likely to resist an unhealthy urge for chocolate when focusing on a complex mental task than when doing something mundane such as chatting to a friend. In poker trying to assess how a particular villains check v limp range hits an J65ss flop on one table and assessing whether a hand blocks too many missed draws to bluff the river on another whilst tired and sugar crashing can very well lead you to make an undisciplined float on another table.

Increasing health, focus and diet can demonstrably improve decision making on and off the poker table.

This is precious coming from the guy that referred to Dr. Cardner as a "fool" in another thread you started on the subject.

Both of you are discussing subjective nonsense, but at least one of you is coming from a (relatively) informed position.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...8&postcount=15

I've been following this topic with increasing bemusement and have a question which may relieve it.

What established psychological principles is Mr. Malmuth invoking to refute Dr. Cardner's work?

You are mistaken. I have extensive experience playing primarily $10/$20 and $25/$50 live no-limit, primarily at Bellagio and Borgata, with excellent results. I certainly realize I am not the best though, as I doubt I could beat $10/$20 no-limit online in the current environment.

I suggest you try to get your facts correct next time before posting so you don't embarrass yourself. If you watched my video blogs discussing my travels, you would know that I typically play the daily tournament then if I bust early, spend the rest of the day playing cash games.

First, the bolding is mine. You've made the exact same statements about me and the games I have played. So I guess you also embarrassed yourself.

MM

Embarrass myself? If I wanted to do that I would probably buy anything you are trying to sell. Unfortunately for you or fortunately for my wallet, however you want to phrase it, I rarely play tournaments, one should ask themselves: why live a life of variance when there is consistent profits to be made in cash games? However, if I happen to see you at bellagio 10/20 I will be sure to say hello.

I also find it humorous how you say that you doubt could beat 10/20 online NL, well that couldn't be any more obvious. Rest assured you could not beat 5/10NL or even 2/5 zoom on pokerstars. This is after timex, aka Mike Mcdonald failed to do it, who in my opinion, and I believe on paper is a more accomplished tournament player than yourself and I actually see grinding cash games online from time to time. I do think if you hired a good cash game coach and put a lot of time into studying you could maybe beat 2/5 zoom with enough time (but maybe not ). With that said, 2/5nl and higher on pokerstars is incredibly tough and has many great players and you are primarily a tournament player so do not feel bad.

As I believe Mason briefly alluded to in Real Poker Psychology, some tournament players often are huge marks in cash games. As you may already know, there is a lot of adjustments that must be made between the two forms. However, this discussion is only relevant if a tournament player is trying to sell cash game material, which you are, thus, I caution anyone to take any material you write as it relates to cash game with a grain of salt. Especially with the plethora of better resources out there for improving, specifically by more proven online cash game winners, a runitonce subscription will pay great dividends if you put the time into working with CR-EV and learn from all the great content.

I question why anyone thinks you, and Patricia Cardner for that matter, can offer anything of value that Jared Tendler has not already given the poker mental game industry. At least Mason Malmuths perspective offers a mathematical background grounded in probability theory and comes from a reputable source that has published hundreds of books that have advanced poker in some way. You on the other hand are just trying to sell your 24th (or is it 23rd book?). So please, who is the one embarrassing themselves again?

?

I love this.

To paraphrase:

What makes you think that you or someone with a phd in psychology has anything to offer the mental game industry? At least mason has a qualification in a completely unrelated subject. Mason is trying to sell another book, one of hundreds. You are merely trying to sell another book, your 24th.

Embarrassing all round, innit.

If you think probability theory is an unrelated subject then I suggest you actually read Mason's book so that it may clear up any confusion.

Sorry, I did my best to find your tournament results but your name was not listed. Unfortunately live cash games are quite difficult to track. I am sure you are a solid winner in middle stakes limit hold'em. You did say you dabbled in middle stakes live no-limit, which is worth a bit, I suppose.

...wow. Never have I read such an ignorant interpretation of what was actually wrote.

This is a textbook case of why you shouldn't paraphrase because you are taking statements out of context and adding your own spin. Please take the posters advice below your comment and actually read the book.

You were told when you visited our office last summer that I almost never play a tournament. And you have been told through posts directed at you that the only form of poker for a number of years, while we were working on no-limit books, that I played was no-limit hold 'em.

Mason

Hi Everyone:

I'm going to be addressing this post in installments:

Well I gave it a listen. But first, here's a concept from the "Erroneous Concepts" chapter in Real Poker Psychology, and this concept comes from the Elliot Roe’s chapter in Jonathan’s Little Excelling at No-Limit Hold ’em.

First off, Fedor Holz's starting comments (after 10:45) immediately reminded me of this concept. He seems to be remembering when he did best which is obviously his lucky days.

He then goes on to talk about the difference between being 100 percent confident and 98 percent confident. This reminded me of two players debating proper strategy during a hand when the decision is quite close. It doesn't matter.

Another way of looking at 98 versus 100 percent is as follows. Suppose someone bets, it's now your turn and you're 100 percent confident that the best play is to raise. I think you'll raise. Now suppose instead of being 100 percent confident you're only 98 percent confident that the raise is the best play. Well, again, I think you'll raise.

Holz then says he remembers when he busted out in something like 25 live tournaments in a row and then in the 26th tournament he was still playing "like well" but definitely not as good as he could have played. The question that Elliot Roe should have then asked is "Now what hands did you play differently than you would have played at the beginning of the streak and was this new way of playing these hands inferior to your former way of playing them?" I think with this question, Holz would have had trouble giving an answer and it would have been a far better interview with a specific question instead of what was asked.

Holz then says there's a slight difference between playing good which then immediately leads to him talking about soccer and basketball players (who all play well because of their skill set) who are not necessarily playing at 100 percent of their potential. It 's then pointed out that I only play live limit hold 'em and Holz states "that's what people end up playing when they say stuff like that." Well, in my book, there's a great deal of discussion on this and why things like speed, timing, and coordination are far more important in a sport than they are in poker. Of course, Roe doesn't tell him exactly what my book says and he also doesn't tell Hoilz that I have logged many hours in other forms of poker besides limit hold 'em (and this includes no-limit hold 'em) and that there are many poker examples in Real Poker Strategy that feature a number of different poker variants (including an example from High Draw; Jacks or Better to Open).

In addition, I do say in the conclusion of my book that this poker psychology has a little bit of value. And if you're an expert player playing mostly in high stakes games against mostly other experts where your win rate in terms of betting units is quite low, then any small improvement in win rate can be worth a lot in absolute dollars.

However, as stated in the conclusion of Real Poker Psychology:

Anyway, it's my guess that if Holz understood exactly what is written in the book and not what Roe told him, he would be much more in agreement with me. And that's all I'll comment on this interview.

Mason

Hi redfin:

I just want to point out two small things. First, 2+2 only has 43 books to its credit though at times it does seem like we have done hundreds of them.

Second, while i do state that many tournament players do poorly in cash games (because they are much different strategy wise), I also state:

Thanks for your post.

Best wishes,
Mason

The paraphrase did the job nicely actually.

Fluff about the number of books someone has written or their background is of no bearing on the validity of their arguments.

Both sides do well when addressing the meat of the argument and stop flanneling at the edges with comments on how many words they have published, what games they play or what acamdemic discipline they come from.

It's poor form from both sides when it happens, innit.