ITH Poker Forum

[hacksaw]

Hi all,

I'm a longtime fan of ITH. I picked up the first edition of it shortly after it came out. It wasn't the first poker book I read, but it was the first good one and is the book I credit with making me a winning player. I've read the old edition 3 or 4 times and have just started in reading the new edition. Thanks Mr. Hilger! If I ever meet you in person I owe you a drink! I hope to go to the WSOP some year to play in the cash games that spring up around the tournaments (I don't like tournaments much myself) so maybe I'll run into you there.

I've got a question about one of the example hands that's bothered me for a while. It's on page 33 of the 2009 edition. You have JJ in the hole. Flop is Tc 8d 8h. Turn is Qd. It's raised in front of you. During the discussion on determining the number of discounted outs the book says "Your 4 outs to the full house are relatively strong since the only hands that would beat you are QQ or 88". I can't for the life of me figure this out. It seems like you only have 2 decent outs to the full house, the remaining Jacks. The 2 remaining 8's don't seem to have much value to me since if one falls anyone with a single Q or 8 beats you. Given the betting described in the hand I'd say it's very likely that a Q or 8 is in at least one opponent's hand. I would probably disregard the 8's as outs entirely and further discount my remaining 6 outs down to 4 or 5. Note, this doesn't change the recommendation of making the call since you're getting 11 to 1 but the reasoning seems a little shaky to me.

Second question: I play at a local card room where the blinds are taken as the drop whenever the hand makes it to the flop. This differs significantly from what I remember being standard on the internet where a small percentage was taken out of the pot (capped at about the level that the local room takes). Given these higher rakes for small pots how would you adjust the recommendations on the starting hand charts? I tend to play a little tighter because of this. Pretty much treating a "Call 1" as a "Call 2" and so on. Would you say this is appropriate?

Thanks again for writing this great book! As I said, I go back and reread it every couple of years. This go around I've bought an extra copy for a friend and we're doing a mini discussion group on it.


--- Hacksaw

[Bullajami]

Awesome.

Welcome.

[mchilger]

Hacksaw - thanks the kind words and glad you liked the book.

I read your example and was thinking - this sounds familiar. Sure enough, it was corrected in the original book but somehow the error got back in for the New Edition - sorry about that and didn't mean to make your brain read that paragraph over and over trying to figure out something that was wrong

In the original on p.29 'You have four outs to a straight and two outs to a full house. Your two outs are strong. Sorry about that.

I think your adjustment for your rake structure makes sense. However, if the game is quite loose preflop and I assume your postflop skills are quite strong, then I probably wouldn't divurge too much from the guidelines as you likely have a big post-flop advantage over your opponents.

Matthew

[hacksaw]

Hacksaw - thanks the kind words and glad you liked the book.

You're quite welcome. I've read MANY poker books since and still rate ITH as one of the very best. It's the one I recommend to players who are just starting to learn about the game. Of course I only recommend it to people I'm probably not going to be playing against.

I read your example and was thinking - this sounds familiar. Sure enough, it was corrected in the original book but somehow the error got back in for the New Edition - sorry about that and didn't mean to make your brain read that paragraph over and over trying to figure out something that was wrong

LOL. Cool. I guess you can return the favor and buy me a drink after I buy you one.

I'll have to check my original copy again. I think I've got an early enough printing that that hand reads the same in both of mine.

I think your adjustment for your rake structure makes sense. However, if the game is quite loose preflop and I assume your postflop skills are quite strong, then I probably wouldn't divurge too much from the guidelines as you likely have a big post-flop advantage over your opponents.

Thanks for your advice. And you're correct, the games at my local card room are incredibly loose so making this adjustment rarely makes a difference in my action. I just like to make the correct decision for the correct reason. Gotta keep the thinking during play tuned up.

In actuality the game conditions are often loose-passive enough that I play a bit looser than the charts indicate because of the huge odds. I'm still playing much better cards on average than my opponents though.

BTW, your new section on playing in multi-way pots is spot on. Concepts like raising your draws based on the number of likely callers are key to loose games. Getting that reminder this read through has helped my profit margin the last few weeks.

Different question: Do you have a .pdf version of ITH for sale? I'd love to have one with searchable text and whatnot. It'd be great to have a copy of it on my smartphone so I could read it anywhere.

[mchilger]

Sorry - no e-books of ITH.

Matthew

[hacksaw]

Oh well. It was worth a shot.

Thanks for the reply.