Another New Book
I have read many poker books, and I had never seen any proof that the authors were winning players before reading them. In fact, I've never seen proof that anyone was a winning player.
For poker coaching in 2024, it's absolutely standard that you provide qualifications in the form of results and/or references. Even with older books like Super System, Doyle's results are well-known and he has many references. The reality is both Mason and David are unqualified to teach poker in 2024. Back 20 years ago I can understand how you would just write a book and nobody cared about the qualifications, but it's 2024 now.
Which excerpt are you referring to? All I have seen is the forward given by Sklansky which was posted here at the beginning of the thread. If the later explanation in the book was shared, then I must have missed it.
This is the main one I'm referring to, although there were issues pointed out earlier with others as well. See the part highlighted in red. Really, he won "much more", and the claim has been substantiated? This is what you would say to a sucker who doesn't know any better.
Example No. 2: This hand was played by David. Under-the-Gun in a $1-$3 game at a full table, David held the
A♠ K♠
Instead of raising first in as most poker instructors would recommend, he limped in for $3 and got three callers behind him plus the big blind. So, after the rake, there was $15 in the pot.
The flop came the
K♣ 9♥ 4♣
and with top pair, top kicker, David bet $15 and got one caller. The pot (after the rake) is now $42.
David saw that his lone opponent only had $80 left. And wh
As the other poster indicated that AKs limp looks really bad. It may be a good play, but the book needs to explain why. The fact that a donk made a mistake later in the hand is irrelevant. Donks will chase draws with incorrect odds. You want to build a bigger pot to get value against a worse top pair when an ace or king hits. I have no idea to purpose of the limp. To build a bigger pot with more players limp/calling a bigger raise and your hand is disguised?
And next time he tries that trick and gets snapped off with a set of 4s or qjcc, well that was just unlucky.
...If you stick to a game like $1-$3 no-limit hold ’em where the maximum buy-in is usually 100 to 200 big blinds, and follow the advice that is contained in this book, we suspect that you’ll be quite surprised and pleased with your results.
He's also making claims like this. This would imply he has a significant sample with a high winrate, if a beginner can follow the advice and be surprised/pleased with their winrate. But funny enough we never get any details about his sample/winrate.
For poker coaching in 2024, it's absolutely standard that you provide qualifications in the form of results and/or references. Even with older books like Super System, Doyle's results are well-known and he has many references. The reality is both Mason and David are unqualified to teach poker in 2024. Back 20 years ago I can understand how you would just write a book and nobody cared about the qualifications, but it's 2024 now.
This is the main one I'm referring to, although there were issues poi
Isn’t this the other book? Shouldn’t your questions/concerns be in that thread? They say the book in this thread is general statistics, not a poker book.
He's also making claims like this. This would imply he has a significant sample with a high winrate, if a beginner can follow the advice and be surprised/pleased with their winrate. But funny enough we never get any details about his sample/winrate.
I think he can make that claim without having beaten the games himself if he is teaching what is regularly accepted as sound play.
however I do not think telling anyone to play hands like K6s in EP will result in ANYTHING besides people increasing their variance and their tilt because they are playing neutral EV hands. And once you increase tilt, you will lose more money, guaranteed.
FYI: editundo issued a 1-day ban for continuing his derail of this thread after mod told him not to. Subsequent posts in this thread along those lines will be deleted.
When did the original version of the book come out? I would have been sure I had at least heard of all 2+2 books (and read most of them), but I had never even heard of this one.
If this is basically an updated version of an older 2+2 book, why isn't it being released by 2+2 now?
Although Mason helped with some of the technicalities regarding this book, he did not have the time to contribute to the major expansion and rewrite done by Professor Conrad (with my input). Since Amazon now makes it easy to self publish, Mason did not think it would be fair to Justin to ask for a piece.
You’ve never read books written by winners who show they are winners. I’m not insulted by being staked. I’m sure I’ve won more money than you at higher stakes so not sure what you’re bragging about. Oh you can beat 2/5 without a stake? Good job. Can you beat 5/10?
I've never seen a book that offered proof the author was a winner. Which ones would you recommend?
For poker coaching in 2024, it's absolutely standard that you provide qualifications in the form of results and/or references. Even with older books like Super System, Doyle's results are well-known and he has many references. The reality is both Mason and David are unqualified to teach poker in 2024. Back 20 years ago I can understand how you would just write a book and nobody cared about the qualifications, but it's 2024 now.
Offering individual poker coaching is a lot different than writing a book, and is far more expensive. There have been quite a few books where I have disagreed with the play recommended in a particular example, but I still felt the book had a lot of good material and likely made me a better player. If a book helped me to win one additional bet I wouldn't have otherwise one, it was a bargain for the price of the book.
That said, you can't truly know someone is a winning player without watching that person play for a substantial amount of time. Anyone can make up good results and show them to you, or have their buddies tell you they are a good player. Of course there is speculation like you mention in some poker books, but you can judge yourself whether or not you think each example is good or not. Would it make you feel better if S&M had given some numerical results of their poker play? You would have no way of knowing if it were true or not. I think having read prior books by a particular author gives me a much better idea of their qualifications than looking at a page of numbers.
Your example of Doyle Brunson is particularly silly, because his section of Super System is one of the worst poker books I have ever read, like bottom 10%. It's more likely to make someone a worse player than a better one, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were deliberate. It shows that being a winning player does not mean you can write a good poker book.
bashing these two for promoting a book is absolutely wild. They've done more for poker and the community than 99.99% of people; they should be allowed to promote the hell out of their book on 2+2 lol
I already stated what I thought of Brunson's writing, it's some of the worst crap ever published.
But btw, Sklansky wrote one of the sections of SS1. I thought it was well written and with good advice; unfortunately that game has been very rarely played for a long time.
This link no longer works?
