Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em

Ed Miller said:

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Hi Larrondo,

Thanks for the general style praise. It was one of the perks of not working with 2+2 to be able to add a little levity to the book.

If your editor friend is still there, ask her if she thinks a sidebar would be more appropriate than a footnote. IMO the discussion in that footnote is probably too involved to be in a footnote, but is too mathy and tangential to be in the main text. So maybe a sidebar would be a better solution.

From my friend the editior:

"I think there's definitely a way to incorporate that information in the text. It's way too long/interesting to be in a footnote, but as a sidebar it doesn't seem significant enough. Sidebars are also SUPER short. They are usually used for quick take-away lessons (i.e. something you can say in just a few sentences, or statitsics even, or like a running feature like What Would You Do? and a scenario of some hands or something). You are basically using a one column width area to communicate information, so that footnote wouldn't really fit in a sidebar; it's much too long. The best way is to incorporate into the text and I think that could be done very easily there." End quote.

That's what she said. I know there are shaded sidebars in the book that are quite long. I actually don't personally have any opinion about the formatting of this. Be OK with me as a shaded sidebar/example thing, in the mode of the others. Or incorproated into the text. Or left as a footnote, as long as the meaning is clear.

Ed,

could you provide us with a list of known errors? I guess you have such a list anyway for your next update and it would be convenient for us to have all corrections on 1 sheet that we can refer to while reading the book.

Thanks,

Greyzy

P. 79 – In the interest of ultra clarity, I'd suggest refering to pair/marginal draws as pair+marginal draws. I know in the example it's a combo, but the slash is often used to mean 'or' and until the third or fourth bullet point it's not clear if the concepts apply to either/or/both.

P. 137 not sure if this one has been addressed before. "Your light 3-betting hand matched up against a typical 5-bet 'CALLING' hand will…" is that supposed to be shoving?

P. 145 "So you can 3-bet light and usually expect a fold or call. But you still want to mix calls into your defense strategy to avoid leaving your 3-betting range unbalanced and weak." I'd suggest clarifying what hands exactly you mean. I assume it's "you still want to mix calling with medium strengh hands into your defense…" or "…calling with the weaker hands you want to play…" if indeed that's what you mean.

One thing is hugely tilting to me – and to me it's really a problem that should have surfaced in editing and been resolved. That said, I'm sure it's been raised and discussed and the way the book is presented is a conscious decision – let me just say that I think it's the wrong decision.

I am talking about perspective and consistency in use of terms.

I can see that there is nothing wrong with calling the person you play a hand against the villain on some occasions and the opponent on others – just to give a bit of variety to the text as using the same terms and the same turns of phrase constantly can get quite wearisome to read.

However, (and it's a big butt,) this kind of thing does sometimes detract from the clarity and then by extension the instructional value of the text. If a possible outcome is described in one set of terms when the alternatives are considered early in a hand and in a different set of terms when it actually occurs, even when the two mean the same thing, this does not reinforce the point or lesson as well as using consistent terminology. The second observation is intended to confirm the reader in what he will invariably think at this point having read the beginning of the hand – but if it's described differently it gives pause rather than confirmation.

And then there's the one thing that tilts me. It's the lack of consistency in hand discussions. In most (if not all) hands there is a clear player perspective that is followed – one hand that we try to maximise EV for. But it is described in completely different ways.

1) Impersonal and unclear. "CO opens to $7"… and then a paragraph or two in it occurs to us that it's CO we're trying to maximise EV for.

2) Personal and clear. "You open $7 in the CO"

3) Impersonal and clear. "Hero opens to $7 in the CO"

If I am reading a theory part and then moves into a hand discussion any of the above work. I don't particularly prefer the first form because it doesn't immediately inform the reader whose side he is on and who he is trying to maximise for, but either of the forms do work.

However, when we move from one hand discussion straight to another hand discussion it is jarring (and to me tilting) when it changes from one form to another. For hand discussions especially I think it would help clarity and the instructional value of the text if a single perspective is used consistently.

Of the three my favourite is probably Hero. It neatly makes the reader identify with one side of the hand from which to analyze without putting him on the spot – it doesn't engage the ego. In many presentation situations (10 commandments being the classic example – and more modern advertsing also) you want to engage all that a person is and "You" is strongly prefered. People feel directly addressed and involved. I would argue that when discussing a hand we do not want that same level of involvement – because that kind of involvement can lead to a need for confirmation, which leads more often to results oriented thinking than a proper dispassionate analysis.

By extension the same argument could be made for consistently calling the opponent by the same term and in general accepting consistency even when it comes to look like repetition when that repetition reinforces a point as described above.

This is of course not a single little thing that can be fixed – what I'm looking for here are thoughts on whether these are stylistic guidelines deliberately chosen, whether they are up for discussion, and whether there is any point in me going through the book as a whole and submit exactly where I feel changes need to be made that reduce style, flair and variety in favour of boring consistency.

Two glitches in Step 6: Adjust To Your Oppenents:

Under Player Classification, four player classes are mentioned (loose-aggressive,
weak-tight, loose-passive/calling station, tight-aggressive) but there are then only three subsections:
* Exploiting Weak-Tight Players
* Beating Loose-Passive Players
* Beating Loose-Aggressive Players

Where's the (most improtant after all) Beating Tight-Aggressive Players subsection?

In the Beating Loose-Aggressive Players subsection, there's a sentence "…what you’ve learned in the first five steps is the recipe…" in which I think the word "first" could/should be deleted (in that there are no additional steps listed that follow those five).

A very minor nitpick for page 296:

"But it is amazing how many weak players bet that flop 90 percent or more when they have an ace or three of a kind and check it half the time they don’t."

seemed a tiny bit stilted to me. Maybe

"It is amazing how many weak players bet that flop 90 percent or more when they have an ace or three of a kind, but check it half the time when they don’t."

would read a little better?

Post edited 9:01 pm – July 22, 2009 by ErikTheDread

Most anal-retentive nitpick yet, from the copyright page:

"as is." (inch-mark quotes) rather than “as is.” with true quotation marks as used elesewhere in the book.