I am rereading Sklansky's Theory of Poker and Philip Newall's The Intelligent Poker Player. Theory of Poker talks about deception, i.e., changing betting strategy based on the conditions of the particular hand, i.e., weak- strong, strong - weak...

When deciding to play a hand, Newall talks about betting or raising the same way almost every time, in effect disguising the hand. I think Newall bases his ideas on the lessons learned from the Polaris and Sonia bots.

Am I reading the older and newer texts correctly?

One book is ...30? Years old?

Other is 10ish...

In general attempting to play all your hands the same way would be ideal. In practice especially live less is more.


Lot has changed.

Theory Of Poker is very old, but I don't think it could ever really be outdated, except for the hand examples from games rarely played, but even those still have instructive value if you know how to play those games. General poker theory hasn't changed as far as I can tell. It has been several years since I read the book, but before that I read it several times.

Currently reading intelligent poker player.

Newell is saying he is trying to simplify balance. An easy but flawed example.

I raise the button, good player in SB 3 bets, BB folds. Knowing he is a good player, Calling everytime, never four betting. Then never raising the flop when I want to continue. My full button raising range still exists on the turn.

Preflop this can be considered optimal. On the flop never raising can be exploited, but it just highlights simplified balance strategy.

The more different actions you take in each situation the more easy it is to narrow down your range. The more often you take the same actions with your entire range the more balanced you become and difficult to play against.

In a live game this should almost only apply to players you think are good or better than you. Maniacal fish and Cold calling omc's are different.

I'm really enjoying the book and I'm sure something I said will seem a little silly when I'm done.

I found IPP, or at least alot of it, to be be a readers digest version of 'The Mathematics of Poker' by Chen/Ackerman. He rehashes alot of the same concepts in a way easier for a layperson to grasp. The same ideas about Bayesian inference as a basis for deviating from optimal baseline, albeit he doesn't actually display Bayes theorem and the proof in the process. Same use of toy games too, and other concepts.

Part 2 is definitely what I found the most interesting and useful. It also repeats alot of the MOP ideas about Kelly betting and RoR, but actually shows how they can be applied.

As for TOP, that's timeless. In the far future after the game if poker has been lost to a history, it'll be a copy of that book that brings it back. Only prob is that we've known for awhile now the the FTP isn't fundamental, or even neccesarily right, yet TOP presents it as revolutionary.