Getting more out of poker books and other learning tools

Quote of the day: "Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win" Bobby Knight

The new Sklansky/Miller book on No Limit Hold’em is ready for shipping, according to 2+2 Publishing. They were brought to Vegas bookstores yesterday and should be around the country shortly (not sure about Canada). This is the most anticipated poker book release I can remember. I’m interested to get my hands on it and read Sklansky’s theories, as they are always thought provoking and usually provide some good ideas for practical use to mid/low level games.

I think that poker books are a great learning tool, but should not be elevated to any status above “learning tool.” While there are a few fundamental “rules” that are stone-cold necessities to succeed in poker like playing less hands in early position than in late, most stuff that is written should be looked at simply as “ideas” and should enhance your thought process. The ones that are more rule-like in nature can and should be reinforced as often as possible regardless of experience. I’ve read a hundred or so articles that basically repeat the idea of playing tighter from early position and looser from late, and I’ll probably read a hundred more and continue to benefit from them. It is a practice well described in Edward Thorndike’s Laws of Learning under both the Law of Exercise and Law of Recency.

You should use all the leaning tools you can to get “ideas” about the game. Learning tools consist of books, articles, videos, software, discussions on hands, watching other players, and sometimes even mentoring or coaching from another player or professional. You get ideas and alternatives that you can take away and analyze and see if they fit for your particular style of game. Poker is a game that can only be learned in stages. You learn a little bit, and then get some experience playing. It is much more like learning art or creative writing in school than it is to learning something like history or math. You cannot absorb things like a sponge and spill out facts when needed. You must be able to analyze, interpret, and respond at the poker table.

All this takes time, and most people are impatient. Impatient people will continue to fail at poker. I see sponges all the time at in the 1-2 and 2-5 cash games and small buy-in tournaments. People are using plays they see on TV, but using them for the wrong reasons and at the wrong times. They don’t have the ability to recognize why what Gus Hansen does at a WPT final table doesn’t work in most other situations. And they get frustrated. They know you should be aggressive in Hold’em, but they don’t understand how to apply that aggression properly and when to take the foot off the gas. These players are basically trying to learn calculus without first mastering addition and subtraction.

There are games that lend themselves to more sponge-like play, games like full handed high-low Omaha and high-low stud. I’m not putting down anyone who succeeds at those games, because there is some creativity to them and they require an extreme amount of patience. In addition, most players that win in those games also have the skills to beat other games. Even limit Hold’em or no-limit full ring cash games at lower levels can lend itself to robotic play that can show a profit, even if it is not the most profitable way to play them.

I look at my game 2 years ago and see that I have improved significantly through incorporating ideas from others, and my game two years ago was a significant improvement over 2 years before that. Every month new ideas or new ways to look at situations come to my attention by speaking to other people or by reading or analyzing hands.

Books are full of ideas but there can be as many books as there are players in this world. If I wrote a book, it would the book that would help me to play best in my style and experience. If someone else read it, I would think they would get some good ideas to implement into their game, and also see some things that may not work well for them, but it certainly wouldn’t be the book that would give them all the answers for their game. One thing to realize as readers is that some ideas presented in books are too simple for our particular game, others are too advanced. Still others are not right for our style of game. Some are ideas we already know about but need to be reinforced, like the example about playing in position.

Ironically, I think that poker books are toughest on new players. This is partly shown by the Law of Primacy, which states that those things learned first are most often remembered, and many newer players fail because they get bad information in the beginning. This is not only from books, but also from watching bad players play and even watching the WPT final tables where the play is broadcast “out of context” and gives players very bad ideas on how to beat the games that they will actually be playing in. Because they read something in print or see a move in a game by someone who they feel is better than them, they think it is right, while it may not be right or may not be right for them and their game. I think newer players are better off getting a mentor and following some advice, including advice on a reading list and a list of what not to read. Experienced players should be good enough to read anything about poker and disregard the nonsense. I am yet to read a book where I didn’t learn something. There is always an idea that triggers to me, even if it is not exactly the idea the author intended, or if it is simply something that I think is wrong, but I learn that many other people think it is right and will be using it in their game—now that is useful information.

Poker books should teach us to think, not to simply absorb. Just as an example, I think the Harrington books are very good. But if I here the guy across the table talking about them as if they are the end-all to poker, then I know he will constantly make plays as presented in those books, sometimes at the wrong time, and while some plays may not have a good defense, the style as a whole has counter strategies if you know that is exactly how the person is playing. If you don’t recognize this, he will probably show a nice profit playing this style. But any good poker strategy has a profitable counter strategy; that’s the nature of the game. It’s just that the better players recognize counter strategies and come up with a counter-counter strategy to stay ahead. For example, Harrington reacts to situations; it wouldn’t take him long to recognize that someone is using these counter strategies and he would mix up his style to something more profitable in the situation. He tries to teach thinking in the books, not an exact system. Systems don’t work in poker. The Kill Phil book/system is interesting and well worth a read and has some ideas to take away from it, but even the authors admit it is a system that against good players, is just designed to lessen the good player’s advantage over you as an inferior opposition, given that the good player wants to play a lot of smaller pots post-flop. If sponge-like systems were flawless, computers and robotic strategies would already dominate the game. While I think you could build a computer program to beat low-limit games for a small rate, those computers would not be more profitable than the better players at those games.

So take the new Sklansky/Miller book and learn some new ideas from it, but don’t try to be a sponge and absorb everything at once to come up with a set of rules by which to play poker. In the long run, poker is far too an artistic game for that.