ITH Poker Forum

[GWL666]

I just finished reading TPM - “The Poker Mindset – Essential Attitudes for Poker Success” by Ivan Taylor & Matthew Hilger. I have read 3 other books authored by Matthew Hilger, as follows: Texas Hold’em Odds and Probabilities - Limit, No-Limit, and Tournament Strategies; Internet Texas Hold’em Winning Strategies from an Internet Pro; and, Internet Texas Hold’em Winning Strategies for Full-Ring and Short-handed Games. All these books are full of useful information and written well. Great reads!

I am not writing this to trash poker, poker authors, especially Matthew Hilger, and I plan to continue playing Texas Hold’em. I am writing this because TPM actually confirms much of what I wrote in my blog a few months ago about how only 1% or less of all poker players playing all forms of poker over their lifetimes will be lifetime or long-term winners. I also said my population includes all players who just play a few times or even months and quit because they lost.

There are many other great poker books telling you what you must do and know to play winning poker, few address the emotional aspects, downswings and bankroll management in as much depth. Telling you that poker is a game of small edges and that most players are long-term losers is novel, see pages 21 and 248. Few books talk about luck so much and how you must play 50,000 to 100,000 hands to even know if you are really a long-term winner or just lucky. Very few players will ever play 100,000 hands of poker.

I truly suspect that the majority reading this book will not fully comprehend the following comments in TPM:

1. Page 21 – “This mathematical theory, often called “the law of large numbers,” has important consequences in poker. As you play more and more hands of poker, the changes of you being extremely lucky or extremely unlucky decrease. Play enough hands, and the luck factor is virtually eliminated, leaving skill alone to determine results. Unfortunately, it can take a very long time for the effects of luck to be negated. We can say that after 100,000 hands a winning player will almost certainly turn a profit, but even this isn’t certain, especially if he is only a very marginal winner.”

“A very marginal winner” is not defined and I personally do not know one player that has played 100,000 hands. Playing live at the local casino twice a week for 4 hours each time assuming 35 hands are dealt per hour would take you about 7 years. Playing on the internet twice a week for 4 hours each time playing just one table would take about 125 weeks or about 2.4 years, assuming 100 hands are dealt per hour. I know many of you advanced players can play multiple tables, but that is not recommended for most beginning players.

Tracking their net profit/loss for those periods (up to 7 years live, or 2.4 years on the internet) for most would not be done. Most would not know their hourly win rates playing limit, which is one of the long-term essentials of TPM. How can you improve your game if you don’t know for sure if you are winning or losing?

2. On page 22, “It is only after you have played thousands and thousands of hands that you can look at the aggregate results from all these upswings and downswings and see the long term trend.” Of course this also means you must know how much you have won or lost. Later in the book it talks about having a separate poker bank account to track your net profit or loss, page 261 “Bankroll Separation.” Very few actually do that or will do that after reading this book.

But after playing thousands and thousands more hands you find out you are losing or your win rate is to low, then you must repeat the process to see if you fixed the problem(s), which assumes you have analyzed most of your hands. Which also assumes you have a sufficient bankroll and you have been able to “desensitize yourself to money – Scared money can’t win.” ( page 30). Page 23, “If you are looking to make money from poker, you need to play for the long term and accept the short-term risks.” I guess this means that in the short run most can expect to potentially lose a lot of money? Most won’t, they will just quit playing poker and realize that much of what surrounds poker is what it has always been, meaningless HYPE.

3. Page 171- “Base level bankroll of 300 big bets in limit poker. So if you want to play $3/$6 limit, you would need a minimum bankroll of $1,800 or $30/$60 limit, $18,000. I doubt that many at this site have $1,800 to spare and definitely not $18,000. Most players probablly just lay down $50 to $100 and when that is gone they quite for the day and if they win they mixed the winnings with their other money and really never know if they are ahead or behind after multiple sessions. Next time they play they put down another $50 to $100 and start all over again. Unless of course they have poker software and download each internet session from the various internet sites, and then transfer that to other electronic worksheets where they also track their play live at casinos. Forgive me if I don’t believe that is done by most.

4. On page 248 in TPM it is stated, “In fact, because most players are long-term losers at poker, it stands to reason that most players play for reasons other than making money.”

It is somewhat ironic that just a few months before reading TPM, I posted that 1% or less of all poker players will be lifetime winners. In response to that post, Matthew Hilger posted a comment that ended “….very very few.” I lot of people posted that I was so wrong and my logic flawed…So now on page 248 in TPM it is stated, “In fact, because most players are long-term losers at poker, it stands to reason that most players play for reasons other than making money.” I wonder if Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger can put a percentage on their use of the word “most players are long-term losers”? What is truly sad is that so many players find this hard to believe and are in complete denial, mainly because of all the hype surrounding poker and other forms of gambling. But Ian and Matthew are not the first poker authors to make similar statements, but these other authors usually phrase it in term like most players are not cable of mastering the game of poker because of all the complexities.

For example, Mason Malmuth in Poker Essays, page 22 states, “You do not get to be a great player because you are aggressive, know the percentages, have the proper image, recognize a lot of tells, are good at reading hands, can manipulate your opponents into mistakes, don’t play too loose or too tight, have a good understanding of people, know your particular opponents well, have years of experience, check raise at the proper times, are good at buying free cards, select good games, can also play well short-handed, etc. You become a great player because you excel in all of these things and a lot more, and because you are able to combine then in the proper mix.”

I believe most everything written in TPM. And, anyone who does everything suggested in TPM, e.g. continually reads and rereads poker books, restudies, reviews hand examples weekly, practices for years,…etc., just might become a long-term winning player and show a profit, only if they are just not a marginal winner. I do take exception to the overuse of that meaningless word luck.

Permeating chapter two are no less than 21 references to luck. To quote just a few: “Chapter 2.1 – Chess involves no luck, even in the short term. The outcome is entirely dependent on which player makes the best moves. In poker nothing is guaranteed in the short term. The luck element dictates that even over a reasonable number of hands, you can play well and lose, or indeed play badly and win.” “Chapter 2.2 - In the Short term luck is king…It does not matter how well you play; these types of statistics will affect every poker player in the short run, clouding the underlying skill element.” “Chapter 2.3 - In the long term, skill is king.” Let’s look at the definition of luck and then just how long “long term” is.

The definition of luck per Wikipedia on the internet is “Luck or fortuity is good or bad fortune in life caused by accident or chance, and attributed by some to reasons of faith or superstition, which happens beyond a person's control.”

However you define it, luck, good or bad, is not measurable because it is not real. Luck is superstitious nonsense like many beliefs that cannot be supported by verifiable evidence, but are based on superstition and hearsay, e.g., breaking a mirror causes 7 years of bad luck, walking under a ladder, the number 13 is bad or evil as is 666, opening umbrellas inside, miracles, the devil, heaven, hell, angels, God, etc. Poker results are based on probabilities based on millions of hands and have nothing to do with anything superstitious like luck. In Texas Hold'em, each player is dealt 2 pocket cards and 5 other cards are turned over on the board, 3 on flop, 1 on turn and 1 on the river. Theses cards are dealt randomly. There is no bad luck or good luck, just mathematical probabilities. I think Matthew and Ivan were really writing about results that fall outside expected probabilities that they chose to call bad luck. Probability is reality based on the LLN – Law of Large numbers and is neither lucky or not, just reality.

5. Blaming bad luck is much more palatable and gets you more sympathy from your friends when they say “Wow that was really bad luck.” Now if they just said, “Wow that is just reality, those are the probabilities and the LLN, they might not make them feel better. Bad luck, bad beats and bad swings are just the probabilities you will lose, e.g., heads-up with pocket Aces, you will lose about 14% or win 86% (from table in “The Illustrated Guide to No-Limit Texas Hold’em” by Dennis Purdy, pages 26 and 27) of the hands; however, it may take hundreds of thousands to a million of hands for those results to be achieved. In the short-run (e.g., 1,000 hands), you could lose with pocket Aces heads-up 65% to 100% or even win 95% or more of the time, but not likely. Or with downswings, you just might have a day or two or weeks, maybe months where many of your premium hands lose. This is not bad luck or bad beats, just poker and just reality within the LLN and probabilities. Calling it bad luck or good luck or bad beats is just superstitious nonsense to make you feel better.

Most of you will not be long-term winners as I said in my original post. Ask Ian and Matthew Hilger what they mean on page 248 in TPM where they state, “In fact, because most players are long-term losers at poker, it stands to reason that most players play for reasons other than making money.” Wer zuletzt lacht, lacht am besten.

[mchilger]

I think your question comes down to how you define the population of "poker players". My wife played a few hands in a casino one time, but has never played again. If you include those poker players, then I would agree that probably 1% might only be winners. The reason this would be true, is that there are many, many people who try something once or twice and then never try it again.

Then there is another group of people who just like to play, but never really apply themselves to try and be better players. Maybe they go the casino once a week and never read a poker book or even a poker article. These types of losing players would be similar to the type of people who go to casinos every week and gamble on blackjack, slots, craps, etc. They are long-term losers, but they do it for entertainment.

If you jump a few levels, you get to people who register on a forum like this. They are most likely serious about working on their games. They read book, watch videos, post in the forum etc to improve their games. Most of the these types of players will end up being winners.

So it just depends on how you define a poker player. If you define it at 100 hands, 1,000 hands, 10,000 hands, 100,000 hands, or 1,000,000, then the percentage of winning players will continue to increase dramatically.

Matthew

[GWL666]

I think your question comes down to how you define the population of "poker players". My wife played a few hands in a casino one time, but has never played again. If you include those poker players, then I would agree that probably 1% might only be winners. The reason this would be true, is that there are many, many people who try something once or twice and then never try it again.

Then there is another group of people who just like to play, but never really apply themselves to try and be better players. Maybe they go the casino once a week and never read a poker book or even a poker article. These types of losing players would be similar to the type of people who go to casinos every week and gamble on blackjack, slots, craps, etc. They are long-term losers, but they do it for entertainment.

If you jump a few levels, you get to people who register on a forum like this. They are most likely serious about working on their games. They read book, watch videos, post in the forum etc to improve their games. Most of the these types of players will end up being winners.

So it just depends on how you define a poker player. If you define it at 100 hands, 1,000 hands, 10,000 hands, 100,000 hands, or 1,000,000, then the percentage of winning players will continue to increase dramatically.

Matthew

Why does the mere suggestion that most poker players are long-term losers cause such uproar and consternation? It really is just common sense. My original post was 1% or less are lifetime winners and you replied “very very few.” I made my original post before reading TPM – The Poker Mindset. TPM states that most poker players are long-term losers so they must play for reasons other than winning money. I think my 1% or less is still correct even if you eliminate the players like your wife and mine who played once or twice and quite. There are no databases to support the percent of short or long term winners playing Texas Hold’em Limit or No-Limit cash games or any other poker cash games or all forms of poker tournaments. The relatively few who win millions of dollars in the big Texas Hold’em No-Limit MTTs (e.g., WSOP tournaments) do get lots of press and are hyped to the hilt on the TV, in poker magazines, on the internet (e.g., Poker Channel TV Video Streaming Poker Heaven Presents 24/7 Streaming of the Poker Channel), etc. The hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands, even possibly millions who lose playing Texas Hold’em No-Limit MTTs or any form of poker get no press. It is this advertising hype about the few winners that gives many players this false illusion that many are winners and almost anyone can win lots of money playing poker, especially if you read the poker books. TPM is one of the first poker books to state so succinctly that most all poker players are long-term losers.

I agree with your statement that reading and rereading poker books, analyzing hands, etc. will potentially increase the probability that you will be a long term winner. However, page 21 in TPM brings up an even more perplexing possibility that even after playing 100,000 hands you could still be a loser if you are only a marginal winner. How do you know that or is that an educated guess based on a number of players you know or your own experience? Or is that to set the readers up for the fact that it may take them hundreds of thousands of hands before they correct all their playing errors and become potential winning players after the luck (i.e., manmade superstitious concept that has no basis in mathematical reality) factor is eliminated and their skills remain, assuming they have skills? On page 21 of TPM, “4. Poker is a game of small edges.” “Once you take into account the rake, even the best players are barely turning a profit when compared to the size of the average pot.” Is it really mainly the Grinders (low-limit e.g., $1/$2 limit players playing 100,000 hands per month or more) who are turning a small profit playing 5 to 20 lower limit tables simultaneously? Well, again, no one really knows because the data is not available. TPM reinforces the idea that if you keep playing lots of hands and studying and reading poker books you just might make some money. Another famous poker author claims making $50,000 per year playing $5/$10 Limit Texas Hold’em is not too unrealistic if you find the right games against the right players and know how to do everything correctly, which is apparently not asking too much; however, this author also have no statistical database to support his claims. I think his books still sell well, even if he is not wining that much or at all playing poker, at least from what I can tell from poker magazines and rankings.

How many can actually afford to play $5/$10 limit? Looking at the examples per the “Test Your Skills” sections in three of your other books, approximately 76% are for the limits $15/$30 to $30/$60. Given a base level of 300 big bets, you would need a minimum bankroll from $9,000 to $18,000 depending on which limit. How many can actually afford to play at those levels?

The main problem with all the statements about winning and improving your game by following all the poker book guidelines is that there is no statistical proof that they work for a large number of players or even a few players, which brings us back to my 1% or less will be lifetime winners. The monthly card player magazines mention a handful of players that have made it big. If you are up late enough, you might get to see Poker After Dark where six professionals starting with $50,000 buy-ins which will be up to $200,000 later in the 2010 season. This is fun to watch because of the side-bets that are made, e.g., how many cards that flop will be red? Some of this appears to be how these players might act in real life; but, it is not clear if they are all even playing with their own money, so who knows for sure. But one thing is for sure, the sole purpose for this TV series or televised tournaments is to hype the game of poker to get more to play. The Casinos and Online Poker sites have a huge task.

The huge task of replacing the millions of poker players that quit each year after they finally figure out the realities of poker, i.e., most players are lifetime losers. So these Casinos and Online poker sites spend billions advertising, giving out deposit bonuses, freerolls and advertising on poker forum sites and paying the superstars possibly millions in salaries or a share of the profits to represent their sites. But they will not publish any of the results of Texas Hold’em cash games, not even in summary form and very little on tournaments unless you were in that tournament. I have written Poker Stars and requested that summary information without players’ names or Ids; but, of course they won’t give it out. It is not illegal for them to publish summary data; but they don’t want you to know that most of you will be lifetime losers. It is the same with why Casinos will not tell you that most will eventually lose all the money wagered.

As a child through college, playing poker and pinochle for a few hours with my grandparents, other relatives and neighbors on the weekends for pennies was very entertaining, everyone was happy even if they lost a buck. Everyone had a few beers or sodas, pretzels, and at break sandwiches. There was always plenty great conversation and camaraderie. This was true gambling entertainment at its best.

But at least for me, telling me that losing hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars playing at casinos with strangers in crowded sometimes smoked filled rooms or at online poker sites is somehow entertaining is just pure nonsense, just more of the hype. I am not on a crusade against gambling but realize it is probably one of the most mentally addictive activities since the dawn of time. Just look at the state lotteries and Powerball and OTB – Off Track Betting. More money is spent/lost in the name of gambling entertainment than most other entertainment. Usually this money is spent by those who really can't afford it and should be spending it on other priorities, e.g., children’s education, food, clothing, new house, charity, except for those few who are independently wealthy. You know that 1%.

[mchilger]

The main problem with all the statements about winning and improving your game by following all the poker book guidelines is that there is no statistical proof that they work for a large number of players or even a few players

It definitely isn't a statistical sampling, but this website has been a pretty good benchmark for the success of my book. Of all the copies sold of ITH, a decent percentage of them found this site. Of those, there have been a lot of success stories and the Forum still thrives today.

For those who apply themselves and who want to learn and improve their games, many can be successful. But to end this argument, you are correct, most players will lose money gambling and playing poker.

I am finished with this discussion.

Matthew

[nsidestrate]

I am finished with this discussion.

It took me a whole lot longer. You are clearly much more clever than I.

[GWL666]

I am finished with this discussion.

It took me a whole lot longer. You are clearly much more clever than I.

Guess what? I am finished too.

Like I said, you have very little proof, as do any of the poker authors.

I do admire your success. But I suspect even before your big six figure salary, you were from money and had a great bankroll. Most do not have the silver spoon start.

Again, you are one of the few, the few in the 1%.