Let There Be Workbook.
DailyVariance will soon be publishing a new ebook, written by Tri “SlowHabit” Nguyen. It will be entitled “The No-Limit Holdem Workbook: Exploiting Regulars”, and here’s what the author says about it:
The Workbook goes into details of the important theorical concept “top of my range” and shows you why those who truly understand the concept is a big winner at their stakes. It will also teach you how to incorporate this concept into your thinking process through an extensive question and answer section.
The book is due in early November.
Full review to be read here on seanpoker.net in the following weeks!
You can check out the book’s website for more information.
What is weight of each type of hands in a standard Omaha preflop range?
We previously examined some PLO starting hands, but it would also be interesting to put a weight on them using combinatorics. This would enable us to make more educated guesses against our opponents’ ranges, and later on we will be able to study how likely it is for them to hit various flops.
The following charts list several hands and give the probability of being dealt one of these hands from a 52-card deck. In each case, the whole type is considered; for instance, the (gapless) rundowns are represented by 2-3-4-5, but the probabilities include all rundowns up to J-Q-K-A. When a rank is excluded (to avoid counting the same hands multiple times), it is marked with a dot. This is the case for 2-3-4-A big suited ace, where the jack, queen and king are excluded since the hand would then fall into the gapped rundown category.
The “(any)” column makes no assumption about suits; the “(no 4flush)” one excludes hands with four cards of the same suit; the “(1+ suit)” one also excludes hands without a suit (rainbow hands); and eventually, the “(2 suits)” column gives probabilities for double-suited hands. When a column is not relevant to the type of hand (for instance, the “(any)” and “(no 4flush)” do not really apply to the “big suited card” type of hand, since it must be suited by definition), then the correct probabilities are taken from the relevant column, and put in gray/italics.
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Is life too short to read?
“Why would I read poker books”, one might ask. “Most great players haven’t read a single poker book in their life. Practice is what matters; just play and you’ll improve your game if you think about what you’re doing”.
While these points may be true, at least to some extent, they essentially stem from this simple fact; most poker books are for beginners. How come?
The author, the publisher and the suicide amateur
Most books come out via a publisher. In a nutshell, his job is to make sure the books of the authors under contract are well suited for the intended audience, then to sell them. His goal is to make money, even though that certainly does not mean that it is necessarily his sole motivation. But, if “his” books don’t sell, then he’ll close down the shop, eventually.
Since most books cost, on average, something from $15 to $30, and there is not much leeway here, the publisher wants to sell as many copies as possible; in this market, volume trumps anything else. Putting out books in niche markets may be good for the image of the company, but they don’t bring the bacon home. So, what is the largest pool of potential readers out there?
Right, this is the beginners, the amateurs and the casual players. If your goal is to sell a lot, this is your target audience. Beginners typically play by instinct; each situation is a new one for them, and they are often at a loss to know what to do. They lack a plan, and they do a lot of guessing. They generally lose, too.
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