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peterbirksEvery so often, when I am feeling calm, I go back to reading Sklansky and Miller on No Limit Hold'Em, because I know that the bad editing and lazy writing will get me worked up within a few minutes.
The problem with all this is that any criticism of lazy thought is confused by people with a criticism of the thought itself, so they end up refuting a point that you haven't made. Luckly, that doesn't surprise me any more. Hell, Roland Barthes has never been understood in the UK or the US when he differentiates between the signifier and the signified.
Page 12: "Manipulating The Pot Size":
Here's a typical piece of confused thought that buries a valid point in a non-sequitur.
"Good players keep the pot small when they are vulnerable, and they build it big when they have the edge".
A valid point, but badly expressed. What about the hands where you have the edge, but are also vulnerable? So, our poor novice might say: "I have the edge here, so I should build the pot". "But wait, I am vulnerable, so I should keep it small!" Now, you and I may know what Sklansky and Miller mean, but, put bluntly, they have failed to express that point correctly.
They then immediately follow this with:
"Fundamentally, that's why they win."
A non-sequitur. It may be a factor in their winning, but Sklansky and Miller have elevated it to an all-important one. Good players win for many reasons. Being able to build big pots when it's right to do so and keep it small when it's right to do so is just one of them.
The next sentences make things worse.
"Everyone wins and loses pots. Good players win big pots and lose small ones. The difference is their profit".
A child would, I would I have thought, seen the misplaced implied assumption in this. You only have to look at the later stages of a tournament, where the blinds are large compared to the stacks, to see that the statement is not necessarily true. The implied assumption is that everyone wins and loses roughly the same amount of pots and the difference is that the good players wins bigger pots and loses smaller ones. Now, perhaps I'm inferring something wrong there, but if that is the case, it's still bad writing.
It would be worse for the novice, because this is what leads to the "waiting for a hand" phenomenon in so many of the weak-tight fests. Net result is (as in tournaments), the aggressive player wins about 15 hands stealing blinds (0.75PTBB won per hand), about 15 hands on the flop with a continuation bet (about 2.5PTBB won per hand), and then has to fold to a check-raise a couple of times (about 10PTBB lost per hand). So, this player is losing big pots and winning small ones -- the antithesis of the "good player" according to what Sklansky and Miller have written. And yet, this is a winning player. Once again, we might be able to glean what Sklansky and Miller mean, but they simply haven't written it.
Page 19: Sklanksy and Miller point out that you want to induce your opponent into making mistakes. They also say that "you should try to avoid situations where you are likely to make a mistake". and "don't allow yourself to fall into a difficult situation where you're likely to make a mistake".
These apparently non-controversial sentences use value-laden words "likely" and "difficult" to cover themselves, and I'd like to see Gary Carson's take on them.
The problem is, in no-limit poker, we deliberately and correctly put ourselves in positions where we might make a mistake all the time. The most extreme example is when you get Aces. The best way to avoid a difficult situation with Aces is to raise all-in preflop. But that does not maximise your expectation and Sklansky and Miller do not advocate that you do this. Therefore, by implication in certain circumstances they advocate making a play that might put you on a difficult decision. It's the failure to clarify this that strikes me as a weakness.
It's not as if they are pushed for space. In para three on page 18 there's a whole pararagraph on how in limit poker things are different and how the restriction on betting makes it hard to induce a mistake from your opponent (although they fail to mention the 'inappropriate fold'). This would have been cut by any competent editor. But I suspect that the 2+2 guys edit themselves.
The thing is, winning at poker is often about getting difficult decisions right more often than you get them wrong. Good players prefer short-handed because there are more, not fewer, marginal decisions. Their edge is getting those marginal decisions right more often than their opponents do. And where I think Sklansky and Miller confuse things (with, once again, poor writing rather than poor conceptualisation) is what a "difficult" decision actually is.
Although they spend much time on defining a 'mistake' as referred to by Sklansky's beloved Fundamental Theorem, they spend none on the definition of a difficult decision. And thus the novice might be led astray.
Here's a classic example of a supposed 'difficult' decision -- one recounted in FMM.
You get AK. You raise the pot and get called by one player behind. The flop comes Kxx two of a suit. You bet the pot and opponent calls. The turn is a brick. You bet the pot and opponent calls. The pot is now the size of your opponent's stack. The river brings three of a suit. So you check. Your opponent bets the pot. You now have a 'difficult' decision. What could be more self-evident?
Well, a lot of things. If you know that your opponent never bluffs the river, you don't have a difficult decision at all. You fold.
Similarly, if you know that your opponent will bet the pot in this situation no matter what he holds, then, once again, you don't have a difficult decision. You call. Sure, sometimes you will lose, but it isn't a difficult decision. Indeed, playing this way against laggy opponents is one of your best money-makers.
In fact, you only have a 'difficult' decision if either (a) you know nothing about your opponent or (b) you know that he is good enough to bluff roughly the right percentage of the time. And if your opponent is the latter, your mistake wasn't betting the pot on the turn, it was betting the pot on the flop.
So, most of the time, setting yourself up for a possible 'difficult' decision isn't a mistake at all.
FMM recommend getting round facing this hard decision by limping with the AK and then reraising a raise. Once again, I'd love to see Carson's take on this. And FMMM don't assign a percentage to the times that this line costs you money. It's the classic "make a small mistake now in the hope that opponent will make a large mistake later on".
Now, the point I'm trying to make here isn't that Sklansky and Miller are giving bad advice; it's that they are very bad at expressing the good parts of the advice and that it is too easy for inexperienced players to pick up the wrong part of that advice. In effect, Sklansky and Miller often put down the wrong parts of the good advice, emphasize the wrong parts of that which they do put down, and fail to delineate their implicit assumptions.
Of course, that's fine by me. Every time I see a big overbet on the river from people I know never bluff the river, I can see them reading the bit about how you only need to be called a much smaller percentage of the time to make the bigger bet correct. What Sklansky doesn't point out* (because chapter two is all on "Playing The Nuts on the River") is that, if you bet much smaller amounts with 'value' bets than you do with the nuts, your bet-sizing gives everything away.
*(or, if they do, they've tucked it somewhere where it's easy to miss)
_____________________
The problem with all this is that any criticism of lazy thought is confused by people with a criticism of the thought itself, so they end up refuting a point that you haven't made. Luckly, that doesn't surprise me any more. Hell, Roland Barthes has never been understood in the UK or the US when he differentiates between the signifier and the signified.
Page 12: "Manipulating The Pot Size":
Here's a typical piece of confused thought that buries a valid point in a non-sequitur.
"Good players keep the pot small when they are vulnerable, and they build it big when they have the edge".
A valid point, but badly expressed. What about the hands where you have the edge, but are also vulnerable? So, our poor novice might say: "I have the edge here, so I should build the pot". "But wait, I am vulnerable, so I should keep it small!" Now, you and I may know what Sklansky and Miller mean, but, put bluntly, they have failed to express that point correctly.
They then immediately follow this with:
"Fundamentally, that's why they win."
A non-sequitur. It may be a factor in their winning, but Sklansky and Miller have elevated it to an all-important one. Good players win for many reasons. Being able to build big pots when it's right to do so and keep it small when it's right to do so is just one of them.
The next sentences make things worse.
"Everyone wins and loses pots. Good players win big pots and lose small ones. The difference is their profit".
A child would, I would I have thought, seen the misplaced implied assumption in this. You only have to look at the later stages of a tournament, where the blinds are large compared to the stacks, to see that the statement is not necessarily true. The implied assumption is that everyone wins and loses roughly the same amount of pots and the difference is that the good players wins bigger pots and loses smaller ones. Now, perhaps I'm inferring something wrong there, but if that is the case, it's still bad writing.
It would be worse for the novice, because this is what leads to the "waiting for a hand" phenomenon in so many of the weak-tight fests. Net result is (as in tournaments), the aggressive player wins about 15 hands stealing blinds (0.75PTBB won per hand), about 15 hands on the flop with a continuation bet (about 2.5PTBB won per hand), and then has to fold to a check-raise a couple of times (about 10PTBB lost per hand). So, this player is losing big pots and winning small ones -- the antithesis of the "good player" according to what Sklansky and Miller have written. And yet, this is a winning player. Once again, we might be able to glean what Sklansky and Miller mean, but they simply haven't written it.
Page 19: Sklanksy and Miller point out that you want to induce your opponent into making mistakes. They also say that "you should try to avoid situations where you are likely to make a mistake". and "don't allow yourself to fall into a difficult situation where you're likely to make a mistake".
These apparently non-controversial sentences use value-laden words "likely" and "difficult" to cover themselves, and I'd like to see Gary Carson's take on them.
The problem is, in no-limit poker, we deliberately and correctly put ourselves in positions where we might make a mistake all the time. The most extreme example is when you get Aces. The best way to avoid a difficult situation with Aces is to raise all-in preflop. But that does not maximise your expectation and Sklansky and Miller do not advocate that you do this. Therefore, by implication in certain circumstances they advocate making a play that might put you on a difficult decision. It's the failure to clarify this that strikes me as a weakness.
It's not as if they are pushed for space. In para three on page 18 there's a whole pararagraph on how in limit poker things are different and how the restriction on betting makes it hard to induce a mistake from your opponent (although they fail to mention the 'inappropriate fold'). This would have been cut by any competent editor. But I suspect that the 2+2 guys edit themselves.
The thing is, winning at poker is often about getting difficult decisions right more often than you get them wrong. Good players prefer short-handed because there are more, not fewer, marginal decisions. Their edge is getting those marginal decisions right more often than their opponents do. And where I think Sklansky and Miller confuse things (with, once again, poor writing rather than poor conceptualisation) is what a "difficult" decision actually is.
Although they spend much time on defining a 'mistake' as referred to by Sklansky's beloved Fundamental Theorem, they spend none on the definition of a difficult decision. And thus the novice might be led astray.
Here's a classic example of a supposed 'difficult' decision -- one recounted in FMM.
You get AK. You raise the pot and get called by one player behind. The flop comes Kxx two of a suit. You bet the pot and opponent calls. The turn is a brick. You bet the pot and opponent calls. The pot is now the size of your opponent's stack. The river brings three of a suit. So you check. Your opponent bets the pot. You now have a 'difficult' decision. What could be more self-evident?
Well, a lot of things. If you know that your opponent never bluffs the river, you don't have a difficult decision at all. You fold.
Similarly, if you know that your opponent will bet the pot in this situation no matter what he holds, then, once again, you don't have a difficult decision. You call. Sure, sometimes you will lose, but it isn't a difficult decision. Indeed, playing this way against laggy opponents is one of your best money-makers.
In fact, you only have a 'difficult' decision if either (a) you know nothing about your opponent or (b) you know that he is good enough to bluff roughly the right percentage of the time. And if your opponent is the latter, your mistake wasn't betting the pot on the turn, it was betting the pot on the flop.
So, most of the time, setting yourself up for a possible 'difficult' decision isn't a mistake at all.
FMM recommend getting round facing this hard decision by limping with the AK and then reraising a raise. Once again, I'd love to see Carson's take on this. And FMMM don't assign a percentage to the times that this line costs you money. It's the classic "make a small mistake now in the hope that opponent will make a large mistake later on".
Now, the point I'm trying to make here isn't that Sklansky and Miller are giving bad advice; it's that they are very bad at expressing the good parts of the advice and that it is too easy for inexperienced players to pick up the wrong part of that advice. In effect, Sklansky and Miller often put down the wrong parts of the good advice, emphasize the wrong parts of that which they do put down, and fail to delineate their implicit assumptions.
Of course, that's fine by me. Every time I see a big overbet on the river from people I know never bluff the river, I can see them reading the bit about how you only need to be called a much smaller percentage of the time to make the bigger bet correct. What Sklansky doesn't point out* (because chapter two is all on "Playing The Nuts on the River") is that, if you bet much smaller amounts with 'value' bets than you do with the nuts, your bet-sizing gives everything away.
*(or, if they do, they've tucked it somewhere where it's easy to miss)
_____________________
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-22 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-22 10:01 pm (UTC)I'd like to hear more about the idea from the AK hand on a Kxx flop that "if your opponent is the latter, your mistake wasn't betting the pot on the turn, it was betting the pot on the flop."
Are you saying that against an opponent who bluffs the right percentage of the time, you should never continuation bet if you hit your Ace or King to make top pair? What line would you take?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-22 11:36 pm (UTC)In my games, about 75% of opponents in this situation have called my raise with a pair and are looking for a set. They will fold if they miss and either call or raise if they hit.
Another 15% might be loose-passive chasers. They will call with a flush draw and probably fold to the pot bet on the turn if they miss.
Maybe 5% are lags. To these guys I will probably go for a check-call or a check-raise on the flop, depending on the stack sizes. But you could also go for the bet-bet-check and call line, if you think opponent might make a big river bluff bet often enough for this to be profitable.
Now, against the GOOD player, the one who would hit you with a bluff the right percentage of the time, you want to put him on the spot. After all, he doesn't know that you have AK. So here I definitely like a check. If he checks behind, you have kept the pot relatively small compared to stack sizes. If he bets, you can check-raise, which means commitment comes on the turn.
In online play I feel that AK is the new AQ, simply because you play so many more hands.
So, in the rare situation that I'm up against this kind of opponent, (so I haven't had a lot of practice at it!) I guess that I do like a check most of the time. But this means that you have to consider what you do with a pair when it comes Kxx, and what do you do when you have the draw to the flush? It's no use only checking with the AK....
PJ
Snx for you job!
Date: 2008-03-23 08:26 am (UTC)It has very much helped me!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 01:11 pm (UTC)Andy.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 06:59 pm (UTC)Most of the ideas I have been tinkering with entail some sort of trade-off between bet-sizing and pot-control relative to stack sizes (PCRSS). Put bluntly, I've a hunch that the presumed disadvantage relating to position can be somewhat counterbalanced by good PCRSS.
But I really ought to read the books to see if anyone else is writing stuff along the same lines.
PJ
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-27 07:04 am (UTC)If we take the button. I put money in 22.5% of the time. I raise 18% of the time and I raise first in 9.5% of the time.
If we take the stats on how often I win without a flop, how often I win when a flop comes down, how often I go to showdown and how often I win at showdown, I reckon that I should be able to get a fairly accurate count on what percentage of the time I am winning compared to how often I would be winning if
(a) the big blind always defended to showdown and
(b) the big blind always defended to showdown with half of my theoretical range of hands.
There's nothing to stop me comparing this with situations where I have raised in the CO and have just been called by the button.
This would actually put some numerical value on position -- perhaps not spot-on accurate, but at least it's some kind of number -- , something that I don't think any of our esteemed pro poker writers have ever tried to do (yes, you are right, I do have a bee in my bonnet about professional poker writers talking about stuff like "the importance of position" without being bothered to work out exactly how important it is in financial terms).
PJ
no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 10:39 pm (UTC)There is also a difference between disorganised writing and bad editing.
The first sentence you quote (and indeed the rest) indicate a lack of writing skills that asymptotically approach illiteracy. I'm sure Miller and Sklansky have a pretty good idea what they're doing, but from here it's difficult to distinguish between "bad writing," "disorganised writing," and snake oil. I seem to recall an earlier incarnation of Birks claiming that he could work out whether a book was worth buying, or not, on the basis of reading the first page. A controversial view, perhaps, but a good basis for judgement -- and on this basis, I wouldn't buy M&S.
Editing, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of krill. If you were an editor (and, of course, knowledgeable about the subject matter), what would you do with this thing? I assume the index is equally useless.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-27 07:08 am (UTC)So, if S&M re-read what they wrote and saw nothing wrong with it, then it's bad writing. If they didn't bother to reread it, then it's lazy writing. If the editor failed to spot it, it's bad editing. If he did spot it but didn't say anything, it's pathetic editing. If there was no editor, it's bad publishing.
And you thought all of this writing stuff was uncomplicated.
And now, I shall return to the snake oil.
PJ
no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 06:07 pm (UTC)Bad editing: well, I've had to plough through a two-page essay on Garibaldi written by an unthinking moron and cover it in four more pages of red ink. Editors get tired of this stuff. Eventually, they just circle the obvious big fails and give up. This may well be what happens with M&S, but either way, it doesn't address the base of the pyramid, which is:
These people can't write a meaningful sentence to save their lives. I appreciate your point, philosophically, that predicate logic should clearly determine the outcome, given a pair of statements. I'm sure they could have qualified their choice further down. I expect that they didn't.
I'm afraid that "Good players keep the pot small when they are vulnerable, and they build it big when they have the edge" is, to me, the essence of snake-oil (albeit from people who presumably know how to do it themselves). To continue with your line of enquiry: how good? Keep how long? How small? How vulnerable? Vulnerable in what way? Build how? How big, and when? What does when mean in this context? What is "the edge"?
As you say, the entirely spurious conclusions that "Fundamentally, that's why they win" is an insult to intelligence.
This isn't lazy writing, because I'm pretty sure that they couldn't have cleaned it up, no matter how often they re-wrote it (and I don't agree with you that revision is a necessary adjunct to clarity, although it never hurts).
This is probably not even disorganised writing.
It's just plug ugly and, in essence, meaningless. Meaningless is worthless. Worthless is a good reason not to buy the book, unless you're prepared to stumble into the thickets of incomprehension in order to mine the occasional nugget. Fine for the obsessives, and maybe for those who want an edge; but unlikely to help the average confused reader.