1. I was not suggesting at all that you don't three bet with aces. I was merely saying that you should not play them preflop in such a way that your opponent is "grateful" that you played them that way. As I pointed out in the book you are not only a big favorite preflop but also still a big favorite on average when the flop hits him.


2. The EV is obviously exactly doubled if the pot sweetener is 2x, everyone calls, everyone plays exactly the same way they would have had their been no raise, and everyone's stacks are large enough to avoid getting all in. This would be true even if there were not extra benefits such as being checked to. Thus in games where people rarely sandbag preflop and stacks are fairly deep, any hand that will make money by limping in late position ought to average making even more money if it puts in a pot sweetener raise.

Hello David
I understand that this play is more a cash game play than a tournament play as you don't want to increase the variance in tournament including in the early stage (with big stacks) ?
And applied to speculative hands that can win big pots such as middle pairs, suited connectors or Axs in NLH or A245 2346 ds in PLO8 ?
Also do you think it can be applied OOP (in the blinds) ?

I was watching S. Chiddwick play the million Triton tournament and was very impressed with his strategy of keeping all the pots very small even in position in the early levels. He even checked back a flush (J9 clubs) in position vs 2 opponents on a low card club flop and turn and folded on the river when the board paired and he was check raised by Acx (nice bluff ?).
Of course, as his stack continuously increased and later in the tournament, he switched to a more agressive and higher-variance approach.

My point is: in tournament, increasing EV is good but increasing variance is bad. So, where is the equilibrium point ?

Giving up some of a hand's EV in a tournament to reduce variance is only sometimes worth doing if you are near the bubble or, if not, if a large portion of your stack is at risk. Neither is the case regarding the play mentioned in the book where you sweeten the pot in late position after some players limp in front of you.

Since you re-released this book, with the higher level logic, how much have your sales improved?

This is a brand new book. It’s not re-released.

Mason

That sounds ominous, I'm guessing the market for Poker publications is still flagging? My idea to release a million playbooks is still valid! If you ever want to do it let me know.

I'm glad you didnt stop producing books, as you said you probably would. I'm also glad you introduced higher Level logic to Sklanskys masterpiece, as I advised! I have only read the chapter titles of this book so far, but it does look to me like you made a mistake:

The chapter title "Exploit reactions, not just actions" makes no sense. This is like saying, "dont just walk, also run". The villains are always reacting, its just that you wont realize this until you reach a higher Level. Once you realize this, you can shape the villains perspective of things to get a reaction that suits your hand.

I know this as it was me who first realized that Level Three was all about getting reactions. I give all my theories out for free and I am glad to see Sklansky has taken on some of it! I suspect that he has put it into better language than I could have. But I do doubt you would have released this book without me, so if you guys ever feel like sharing some of those sales with me then please do! I'm taking the kids wild camping this weekend but I'm sure my teenager would prefer a hotel lol.

This sounds like the ramblings of a sociopath.


Anyways onto the book,

In Chapter 3 page 17 and I quote:

"The bottom line is that when you're almost positive your hand is best but can be drawn out on, you should probably not bet merely a little above the "break even figure" while hoping for a call. But rather more than that even if it increases the chances that he'll fold."

Should this quote not be changed too-->

"The bottom line is that when you're almost positive the turn card is better for you, and you have a big hand that can be drawn out on. You should probably not bet merely a little above the "break even figure" while hoping for a call. But rather more than that even if it increases the chance he'll fold."

In your original paragraph it sounds like you are playing your hand and not your range. Can you explain this please?

Not sure I understand the question. The point I was trying to make is that when you are merely a favorite rather than the nuts, a bet of 2x that is called half as often as a bet of x, makes you more money than the x sized bet. If he is right to call a bet up to $700 and he is even money to incorrectly call $1000, a $1500 bet makes you more money in the long run even if it cuts his calling frequencey down quite a bit.


And yes my bet is related to my actual hand rather than the range of hands I could have.

Let's say we open 3x UTG in 6max / 100BB deep and are called by the BT.
Flop comes QsJh2h we CBet 1/2 pot and BT calls.
Turn 4s
We are now vulnerable to any heart, spade, A, K, 9, 8, and perhaps T.
Do you suggest to overbet the pot (say 1.5 pot) with hands like JJ 22 QJ instead of just betting 3/4 pot ?
Thus having more a protect strategy than a value strategy ?

The various concepts explained in the book handle this question well. Several come into play here even if you are only choosing between the two size bets you mentioned. And of course other sizes might be even better including a bet of zero.


But even if it is only those two sizes you are contemplating, its fairly complicated. And if you are using an exploitive strategy it requires you to estimate at least three things:


What are the chances he has a draw rather than a hand?


What are the chances he will call either of those two size bets with both the hand and the draw?


What are the chances he will bluff a missed hand if you check when a scare card comes. (We will assume he shows down a real hand).


In this particular case if he has a real hand, it is almost always worse than yours and is almost always drawing dead. If you knew that was what he had and you are considering only those two bet sizes, the bigger bet would have a higher EV only if he called that bet more than half as often as the smaller bet size.


In the case of a draw that wouldn't be true. As explained in my book and in an earlier post on this thread, the key figure is the EXCESS over the "break even" call. So if the break even call for him is a half pot size bet, a 1.5 pot bet has an excess four times as great as the 3/4 size bet and need only be called one fourth as often as the smaller bet to make you happy.


The break even size bet depends not only on the number of his outs but also on his willingness to bluff at approximately the GTO ratio. That willingness essentially adds to his outs. It increases the size of the break even bet. And therefore is an extra reason to choose the larger bet.


I am not going to go into all the detail that the book does but lets try to come to a preliminary imprecise answer.


If there is a good chance that he is drawing dead (you decide this by thinking about his preflop and flop calling ranges) and a good chance that he will call the smaller bet but not the larger one, then the smaller bet is better even if he is "appreciative" of that bet when he has a drawing hand. However in order for him to be appreciative (given these bet sizes) he has to bluff close to optimally on the river. The larger bet is better only if drawing dead hands still call fairly often (and he is likely to have that) or if it is likely that you are facing a tough player on a draw, or if you are almost sure the player you are facing almost never bluffs (so you can fold the river with impunity) but is likely to call the bigger bet.


Notice though that I didn't talk about making the bigger bet to "protect" your hand. If you do make the bigger bet you probably want him to call.

As to which is the best bet in your game, my guess would be the smaller onebecause making someone fold when drawing dead swamps all other crimes. But its close. And against many types of players, the best play for various reasons may indeed be to check rather than bet at all.

Thanks for the response David!

I think I understand now.

I had a general theory question if you don't mind taking the time.

With regard to mixed frequencies - since GTO will always take the highest EV line whether it is a bet or check. Then by definition mixed frequencies have the same EV so both betting and checking will be the same from an expected value point of view.

Then why aren't all frequencies 50/50? Why are some frequencies 90/10 or even 98/2?

Because a 50/50 frequency can be exploited if your opponent knows you are using it.

But then why can't a 90/10 frequency be exploited if our opponent knew we were using it?

The percentages are in relation to turn cards I think? So we would let's say bet 90% of the time and check 10% of the time.

Because although each street is played independently - GTO has a higher EV on more turn cards when we bet 90% of the time.

Please bring this question to the poker theory forum and the folks there will give you a detailed explanation.

David, congrats on the book. What do you think of the idea that the distribution of the deck is probabilistic but not random? Meaning, mathematically it is probabilistic, metaphysically it is not random.

In other words God has preset a googol decks of cards ahead of time. Can't disprove that.

Bought the book. Honestly. It's a bit of a slog reading through it.

I'm not even done yet - had it shipped the day it came out on Amazon...which is telling because I usually devour poker books within days. Not even Matt Janda's "Applications of No-Limit Hold'em" or Bill Chen's "The Mathematics of Poker" took me remotely that long to work through.

Criticisms so far:
1) Even though it says it's supposed to be for no-limit (as per the title) about half the examples seem to be for limit or pot limit games with very limited (pun intended) applicability to no-limit games.

2) One criticism is my own fault: I play mostly live 100$-ish type tournaments (for fun - not for a living). For many of the ideas in the book we need to know pretty precisely how often villain will bluff in certain spots. For this we need to have extensive background on villain - something that is almost never available in such tournaments. The book seems to be aimed at people with a frequent/regular game or online players with player statistics available.

3) Key concepts bulletpoints at the end of each chapter are worded in a way that make them pretty useless. I went back after a few days hiatus to an earlier chapter and just glancing over the key concepts parts didn't help. I had to reread the chapter.

4) Far too often the gist is "sometimes do this, other times do that in this spot". Well. Duh. It would be a lot more helpful if the author had put example ranges (and maybe even alternative ranges to see how to mix up your ranges) instead of just saying "in 20% of cases do this".

So, yeah, so far I haven't been able to get anything much out of the book that seemed to impart something new - as evinced by a general sparsity of highlighter marked passages. Most conclusions have already been presented in many other books.

Still. Here's hoping that the first half was just the foundation and the second half will have more radical.

There are not limit examples except when I quote from the original. Many of the no limit examples sometimes use a pot size bet to keep the math as simple as possible. But there are also plenty of bet sizes both smaller and larger that are discussed. (It is true that Pot limit Omaha is addressed even though the title doesn't mention it.)


As you point out the book often involves explaining how your strategy changes based on how you think your opponent plays. Remember the whole idea was to take the original TOP which does the same thing, and show how to apply similar thinking to big bet games. Game theory against players whose strategy you don't know is not addressed too much except as it pertains to bluffing.


You are the first reader to criticize the key concept bulletpoints. You will have to give an example for me to get what you mean. And maybe give some examples of the other criticisms as well.


My guess is that you will be happier with the second half of the book. On the other hand if you have already read and understood Janda's and Chen's book it is not surprising that many of the things in my book is stuff you already know. This book was not targeting those with that much advanced knowledge. Then again if you do know all that stuff it means that you are likely on the verge of being able to make good money at poker. So if there are only a few ideas in my book that are new to you, as I'm am almost sure there are, those extra few things may well be the impetus for a new level of success.

Will do. But will first finish reading so as to get the whole picture and give it a fairer go. The next chapter already seems to temper my initial frustration a bit.

Not really. Knowing the concepts and applying them at the table are two very different things (Now there's a book waiting to happen. I think the best book that shows you the thought process that actually goes on at the table - event though terrible from an actual advice POV - is the one by Gus Hansen "Every hand revealed").

Countless times I have shot myself in the foot by overthinking situations. A book that can give you pointers which level to go to based on specific opponent behavior or tournament stage would be gold for me.
Since poker for money (live as well as online) is kinda illegal over here (germany) I alwas have to take a several hour ride accross the border to Leon Tsoukernik's casino which limits it to maybe onc a month. Going full in on poker is not for me. I see it as a fun (mental) excercise and a social hobby.

Yeah but the definition of "god" is useful: "the quantum field." Which is: houses all possibility, contains all knowledge (is omniscient), creates everything. A lot of the adjectives that usually get heaped on the Guy In The Sky With A Beard ... work interestingly for this actual underpinning of the universe.

I'm thinking all quantum physicists, and most physicists, would agree that such things as the distribution of cards are probabilistic but not random. How is that useful? Not for strategy, not directly anyway, but for general knowledge about the nature of things. To know what is actually happening, what one is actually playing.

It is however quite useful strategically sort of indirectly.

Allright, finally got through the rest of it and will step though the niggels with examples.

First off: I don't think it's a bad book and I don't want to dissuade anyone from buying it. The book does exactly what it says on the tin: it takes the original 'Theory of Poker' and pretty much goes through it and checks which things apply to no limit games and which have to be modified.

I just want to give some comments I think could have been better as per the request in the OP.

I'll not comment too much on the good parts. Just assume anything I'm not griping about below is good. My criticisms are more niggels and about formal things.

a) Examples: A bunch of examples are for (no limit?) 2-7 triple draw. I dunno. I have never seen that game offered in casinos over here. Maybe this is wildly popular in the US? I am assuming most buyers will infer from the title this is for no limit hold'em (which it mostly is - but not exclusively so). Arguably this is a false expectation by the reader based on his own assumptions (since nowehere does it say "hold'em" on the cover...though I don't know why one has to say "35 chapters" on the cover...that really doesn't tell anyone anything) .

b) The key points at the end of chapters which are supposed to summarize it are sometimes irksom (as noted in my previous post).
Irk #1) The key points at the end of the chapter 'pot odds' are almost longer than the chapter itself.
Irk #2) Some key points in other chapters aren't particularly helpful. Here's my two least favorite ones:
2.1) Key point in chapter: Inducing and stopping bluffs
Ermm..did the author just tell me in the summary in so many words to just read the chapter again?
I know the rule of writing is:
tell them what you're gonna tell them (introduction)
tell them what you wanna tell them (chapter content)
tell them what you told them (summary/key points)
But...damn...this is taking the last one a tiny bit too literal.
2.2) Key point in chapter: Heads-up on the End
OK. I get it. The previous bullet point has some subtleties in it. But please don't tell me what I understood or didn't. If the author is sure that the reader doesn't understand something he wrote upon reading it - maybe he should have written it in a different way in the first place?

c)
The quoting gets way out of hand sometimes. I get that this is supposed to work off of the previous book, but quoting two pages in a row verbatim from it (chapter on implied odds and also chapter on reading hands) is a bit much. Some other places you get half or three quarter full page quotes. Most people own the first book. They didn't want to pay for a reprint. Coupled with some unfortunate keypoints that just start off new pages and leave the rest blank it feels like some padding was going on (I understand that it's not, because books are set after they are written - but to someone who doesn't know this it sure feels that way at times).

d)
Many times you will find formulations like: "If you estimate your opponent will fold [a hand of a particular strength category] to this betsize 30% of the time...." or similar.
I find this unhelpful. Unless my opponent shows me his cards on each of his folds there is no way to arrive at a good estimate for such numbers. Even if he did - you'd have to play an inordinate amount of the exact same hands against this opponent trying out various bet sizes and being in various positions with various stack sizes before you could confidently make an estimate in the general ballpark of 30% vs. say 10% or 50% (at which level the EV calculations sometimes flip)

On the other hand:
- I did like the chapter about inducing opponents to move away from GTO/keeping them play less optimal very much.
- The idea about how much deviation from a particular play has how much effect on EV is something that is very relevant (and could have used a lot more in-depth exploration)
- In general I found most of the 'various thoughts/bonus chapter/appendices' pretty interesting. Unfortunately they only make up the last 50 pages of the book.

Anyone who's reading this to decide whether to buy it: This is just my opinion. Since the book is not that expensive I'd just advise you to buy it and make up your own opinion and not rely on some random internet poster who isn't even a full-time poker player.

Thank you for your review. Especially because in spite of those things that irked you, you agree that the book delivered on what was promised and you think it is worth buying.

Now to defend myself.

2-7 hands were sometimes used as an example even though I know it is rarely played because the game's simplicity allowed me to zero in on a concept without muddying the waters. Also if you can use two different games to illustrate a concept that makes it more likely that the reader will fully get your point.

The fact that the title doesn't fully coincide with the contents doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Not when the contents are good. 35 chapters was mentioned as a way to illustrate that there were several more chapters than the original.

The key points were written well after the original chapters. And yes there were a few cases where they were more than just a summary. Again I don't think most readers care about such things as long as the information is good.

There was at least one time where I felt a concept should be acknowledged in the key points section but I didn't see any good way to summarize it so I simply said go back and read the main text. Can't see what's wrong with that. And the key point that admonishes readers to go back to the previous one is just me fooling around a bit because I knew the previous point might be passed over too quickly. And of course I knew that many readers understood it without that admonishment. Pretending otherwise is, as I said, just me fooling around.

There was no intentional "padding". The white spaces are not my department and there are technicalities involved that Mason might want to explain but in any case adds up to only a few pages.

The quoting took up, I believe, somewhere between 15 and 20 pages. And for those who still have the original, they are paying for stuff they already have. Again can't see how they would mind that much, especially because it is more convenient for the relevant parts to all be in one book. More importantly they should understand that a significant percentage of readers will not have the original available. Even if they are in the minority, the sin of not providing them with adequate quotes is much greater than slight overquoting, since it would require them to buy the original (Remember the point of the book is to show where no limit theory DIFFERS from stuff in the original. Without knowing significant sections of the original, the new book is less useful.) Mason and I discussed the "sweet spot" as to the amount of quotes that would alleviate the necessity to buy the original while still being a small percentage of the book. And we then added just a bit more for the reasons given.

The general criticism that it does no good to know the right play if your opponent does something x per cent of the time because you don't know what x is, is a reasonable criticism if this was mainly a how to book. Sometimes it is and sometimes I do show ways to deduce x. But mainly it is a general theory book just like the original. And the reason why it is important to know theory is because not knowing it is just as often the reason why someone plays a hand incorrectly as not being able to figure out an opponents range.

There are several details about this book that bothered you. A couple of them should not have. In the other cases you were correct but I think others would disagree about their importance. But I appreciate the time you took to point them out. The second edition will probably make some small changes in your honor and I will send you a free autographed copy.

Thinking about buying Theory of poker applied to no limit hold em. I just don't know if I can justify paying $33 on amazon kindle. I read the first theory of poker book and thought it was good but it was half the price. $33 seems a little steep. Is there a promo code I can enter at checkout?

Hi seat:

The selling price is set by Amazon and not by us. On many of our books they'll discount them by a fair amount, but, at least at this point in time, they're not choosing to do that on this book.

You can buy a hard copy directly from us at a very good price:

https://www.twoplustwo.com/store/

Best wishes,
Mason



Best wishes,
Mason

Thanks for the reply Mason Malmuth. $22 is more like it. Not sure if I want a hard copy though. I might bite the bullet and buy it on kindle. I'll think about it more today and decide tomorrow if I'm going to buy it or not.