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More reading material
May. 12th, 2005 02:17 pmI shouldn't think Amazon gets many people ordering Harrington On Hold 'Em at the same time as "Sculpting In Time" -- "Tarkovsky discusses his art". It should at the very least make the Amazon trick of: "People who ordered this book also ordered...." rather skewed.
I've read but one chapter of the Harrington bbok and right away you can see why it has been heaped with praise. I was particularly happy to see him state quite early one of my long-standing principles of poker. Do what the other people at the table aren't doing.
In fact a lot of improvements in poker seem to come from negatives. "What do I hate the other guy doing?" Hell, if it annoys me, maybe it will annoy someone else if I do it!"
But, back to Harrington. In discussing one hand you can see how he gets inside the heads of other players and sees the hand from their point of view. This is poker as high art. So, when Sammy Farha has trip nines, Harrington explains why Sammy bet the way that he did, and why it was correct. Harrington then sees what Amir Vahedi is thinking when he (Vahedi) made bets that looks somewhat stupid on camera. And he justifies it.
And, most importantly, he points out the very nature of multi-player games, that "luck" plays a part, even if you have perfect information.
If any player who plays tournaments just read this first chapter, and absorbed it, he or she would be on the way to becoming a winning tournament player, because the very processes of thought are what is important. Don't think in chips, think in multiples of the blind and your percentage of the chips at the table + your percentage of the chips in the tournament.
The lucky thing is, most people won't read it. Many of those who try will give up because they didn't realize that the whole thing was so complicated, and many of those that do struggle through to the end will be too thick to understand it. I well remember the first time that I was villified for betting into a dry side-pot when there were about 18 players left and only 10 qualifiers.
In fact, that's an idea for a Gutshot article....
And I'll spare you 3,000 words on the Semiotics in Andrei Rublev as related to the Stalinist purges.
I've read but one chapter of the Harrington bbok and right away you can see why it has been heaped with praise. I was particularly happy to see him state quite early one of my long-standing principles of poker. Do what the other people at the table aren't doing.
In fact a lot of improvements in poker seem to come from negatives. "What do I hate the other guy doing?" Hell, if it annoys me, maybe it will annoy someone else if I do it!"
But, back to Harrington. In discussing one hand you can see how he gets inside the heads of other players and sees the hand from their point of view. This is poker as high art. So, when Sammy Farha has trip nines, Harrington explains why Sammy bet the way that he did, and why it was correct. Harrington then sees what Amir Vahedi is thinking when he (Vahedi) made bets that looks somewhat stupid on camera. And he justifies it.
And, most importantly, he points out the very nature of multi-player games, that "luck" plays a part, even if you have perfect information.
If any player who plays tournaments just read this first chapter, and absorbed it, he or she would be on the way to becoming a winning tournament player, because the very processes of thought are what is important. Don't think in chips, think in multiples of the blind and your percentage of the chips at the table + your percentage of the chips in the tournament.
The lucky thing is, most people won't read it. Many of those who try will give up because they didn't realize that the whole thing was so complicated, and many of those that do struggle through to the end will be too thick to understand it. I well remember the first time that I was villified for betting into a dry side-pot when there were about 18 players left and only 10 qualifiers.
In fact, that's an idea for a Gutshot article....
And I'll spare you 3,000 words on the Semiotics in Andrei Rublev as related to the Stalinist purges.
