Why limit players dont understand NL poker

[Jezza]

Two of the most respected gambling and limit poker authorites here, mason malmuth and david sklansky

Both of them clearly failing to grasp NL concepts on a board full of the best players on the net, at least malmuth had the graciousness to climb down and admit he was wrong, I think sklansky is too arrogant to.....

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...0&fpart=1&vc=1 (masons LONG thread)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...0&fpart=1&vc=1 (sklanskys boo-boo - ignore the weak tight play of the guy posting..read the hand and through to sklanskys comments

Jez

[Doc]

Jez

I don't think that is necessarily 'limit thinking' - it is just arrogance! IMO Limit Hold'em is as different from NL hold'em as NL Omaha is from NL Hold'em.

I can see some logic in Malmouths position (notwithstanding that he is wrong!) but I fail to grasp Sklansky's idea. I play a reasonable amount of limit, and even in limit I'd lead 100% of the time at that flop. The middle player obviously has something and that flop could have hit him. The last player probably has a piece of it too, and in limit he is going to call with TT or JJ as the pot is too big to fold. Checkraising just screams that you have a monster and eliminates the middle player as well as shutting down action on the turn and river. Furthermore you have to protect your hand in so far as you can from the flush draw - you can't let him have a free/cheap card with something like the Ace of spades in an AJ or AT hand. Even if the flush hits the turn, you're still in decent shape with 10 cards on the river to fill you up (or better). In NL you have to be looking to get all your money in on the flop - checking is a disaster there IMO, especially so with two spades out and two high cards for a straight. Bet at least half the pot there IMO!

[Jezza]

aye doc you are right, I lead into the PFR and the other player there for the whole pot.

Just goes to show you your god sklansky doesnt really grasp a lot of stuff

(although his book theory of poker is VERY good and a must read for all serious players)

Jez

[Doc]

theory of poker is good, as are some of his other books, but his writing style is awful IMO

He was an 'early adopter' who got in there with some proper mathematical analysis of the game before anyone else did. I reckon there is scope for a better version of his books though. What do you think?

[Jezza]

His writing style is very dry yeah (like reading a university textbook really)....but I dont mind this as his books are there to educate, not for pleasure and he is good at that.

Theory of poker is a classic piece of poker literature and it explains a lot of extremely important concepts very well. Its in a league of its own imo and shouldn't be touched. His mathematical analysis is also flawless and he is probably the best I have seen at this aspect of the game (which of course translates to limit poker very well)

However he is clearly pretty clueless at deepstacked NL without a cap as several of his posts show, he needs to lose the arrogance for this section or he will never learn.

Jez

[mrmuzeman]

Again, read Super System by Doyle Brunson. I think you wrote one of the chapters so you should be familiar with it.

[Doc]

I don't just mean dry - I mean awful use of English!
In one of his later books he even brings this up, saying (I'm paraphrasing) "If you want nice English, but a nove, this is a poker book" - which is a copout. If he wants to explain something, then he needs to transmit his message with clarity - something I, and others, feel he doesn't do especially well. The maths is relatively straightforward in most of his analysis (granted computers were less readily accessible when he wrote it) - it is just that a lot of other books shy away from it. Again, wrongly in my view. Harrington for example does more detailed analysis on the game than Sklansky does in a lot of his work and his books are far more readable.

Theory of Poker, you'll recall, isn't specific to any variant - it draws examples from (and crucially is implied to apply to) all types of poker. Being pretty clueless about the major form of poker is a bit of a limitation in that regard

Being so arrogant is also a bit daft. As I said above, I think he is wrong even for limit poker in this example.

[GETT1NLOTS]

I've just spent over an hour reading Malmouths argument. I started the Slansky one and was mentally shot to bits by then.

It also makes me realise I know very little about poker compared to a huge number of people.

So now I'm mentally fatigued and depressed. Thanks for the links Jezza.

[mrmuzeman]

Aye Sklansky can have that effect on a man Gett1n

[CJ Mars]

So now I'm mentally fatigued and depressed. Thanks for the links Jezza.

I was exhausted as well about 3 pages into that thread. Lots of the concepts seemed so abstract to me and not particularly well explained by some of the posters.

I find lots of the stuff written by the likes of Jez and Doctor of Danger at least as informative and much better written than many of the posts.

[Jezza]

Gett1n - soz mate

The problem Gett1n is that mason does not have any coherent argument whatsoever in his thread, noone on that board could understand him either (and his original statement was plain wrong also) so it just degenerated into a massive monster. You are right about lots of abstract stuff coming from the other posters, because of the highly "respected" authoritys making these statements it attracted a lot of weird posts in response, however if you look at "el diablos" posts he puts some very good points across well and he strikes me as an excellent NL player.

Jez

[aliensyndm]

I would have thought the reason people get to be "authorities" on poker is because they are always willing to learn but apparently not here.

[Doc]

Jez

I think Malmouth has a tiny bit of logic in what he is saying, but it just doesn't generalise. He is imagining too specific a scenario and failing to realise (until the end, when he does admit his mistake) that it doesn't generalise. My read of what he is thinking, albeit unclearly, is that a hand like AQ is easy to get away from, whereas when you are playing JJ post-flop against overcards and people who have showed strength it is a very tough position to be in. That much I agree with, but you can't go from that specific position to thinking it is a better hand - JJ should always win more money when it hits, and lose less when it doesn't than the AQ.

I think he is falling into the trap of 'knowing' his opponent has JJ while his opponent doesn't know he 'only' has AQ.

[mrmuzeman]

Thats Super 'No Limit' Jezza indulging in his guilty pleasure of 0.5/1 FIXED LIMIT

Hes stuck a whole $11.50. Look at the huge $2.50 pot

[Jezza]

Theres even a waiting list for my santa clause like donations.....

I should save some of the hand historys for the donkey thread