ITH Poker Forum

[ithcin]

I was wondering why are there so many Hold'em math titles on the market, since the mathematics is only one. I guess the answer is that each book has its own coverage on the math of the game (which is wide), according to its author's fields of expertise. Some of them are successful or experienced poker players and inclined more on strategy than on pure math, others have some technical background and their approach of the poker math is rather statistical then analytical, and few of them have a strong mathematics background, making their books to look like real applied math courses. Well, there is also a last category of authors: poker players that still master their high-school math, found that few simple probability calculations can fill tens of pages, teaching others how to do them can fill hundreds of pages and so came up with a book on poker math. I will ignore this latter category in my current review.
The issue is not to rank all these titles together in a top-5 or -10 list, but ranking them by several criteria, of which I see coverage of Hold'em math, ease of understanding, and usefulness in strategy as the most relevant. I guess such classifications would be useful for someone who wants o pick a book or two per his/her needs. So please improve my lists below. I chose the following titles as relevant and labeled them with numbers, then in my classifications I only used their numbers (the order in the first list is given by their publication year):

Hold'em Odds Book (Petriv) – 1
Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker (Yao) – 2
Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities: Limit, No-Limit, and Tournament Strategies (Hilger) – 3
The Mathematics of Poker (Chen) – 4
The Math of Hold'em (Moshman) – 5
Poker Math that Matters: Simplifying the Secrets of No-limit Hold'em (Gaines) – 6
Texas Hold'em Poker Odds for Your Strategy, with Probability-Based Hand Analyses (Barboianu) – 7

Now, my classifications are:
By usefulness in strategy: 6, 2, 3, 5, 7, 4, 1
By ease of understanding: 3, 2, 4, 6, 5, 1, 7
By coverage of Hold'em math: 7, 1, 5, 4, 2, 6, 3
Feel free to add other criteria, titles, or change rankings, of course.

[jeffnc]

I haven't read all these books. Could you now go back and add your opinion of how good in general each of these books are?

[mchilger]

A topic close to my heart since I wrote one and published another. I'm not familiar with Poker Math that Matters so I'll clarify my statements a little.

I personally don't consider Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker a math book - it's more of a general Limit Hold'em book. There are a slew of chapters/topics in that book that have nothing to do with math. Yes, they cover odds, but most general strategy books do too. It's not to say it's a bad book, I just wouldn't classify it as a math book. If they had called the book, Limit Hold'em Strategy, it likely wouldn't be included on this list.

By ease of understanding, I don't understand how you place The Math of Poker as 3rd easiest. I would venture to say that over 95% of the people who've purchased that book haven't read it completely. It requires a very advanced level of math to understand. Again, that's not to say it is written poorly, or a bad book, but I would think the target market for that book is maybe 1 to 2% of all poker players.

Books 1 and 7 I have never understood in terms of the purpose of the books (Hold'em Odds Book and the Barboianu book). All you learn in those books is how to calculate a bunch of tables using a deck of cards, but nothing in those books will help you play better. Maybe worthwhile for someone in a college math class that just likes to know how a lot of things are calculated, but for a player who wants to improve his game he would be better off just playing around with PokerStove. If anyone has read these books and found value in them, please share as I am curious about them.

I personally believe the best place to start classifying is by skill level of the reader:

Beginning to intermediate - Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities. The goal was to write a book for beginning to intermediate players to give them a mathematical foundation behind common situations you might face at the table. The goal was to give them something they could actually apply while playing to help improve their games.
Other options: Practical Poker Math: Basic Odds and Probabilities for Hold'em and Omaha ('m not familiar with the book but assume it is targeted to this audience based on the title)

Intermediate to Advanced - The Math of Hold'em. Covers a lot more topics than Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities. Assumes the reader understands basic math. Addresses topics for a more experienced player.
Other options: Killer Poker by the Numbers (under-rated. Probably somewhere between Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities and The Math of Hold'em in terms of skill level.

Advanced to Professional - The Math of Poker. Only for those with a very high skill level in math and for very experienced players looking at concepts such as game theory and how to use it in poker.

I'm not sure where Poker Math that Matters would be classified as I haven't read it.

Matthew

[nsidestrate]

By ease of understanding, I don't understand how you place The Math of Poker as 3rd easiest. I would venture to say that over 95% of the people who've purchased that book haven't read it completely. It requires a very advanced level of math to understand. Again, that's not to say it is written poorly, or a bad book, but I would think the target market for that book is maybe 1 to 2% of all poker players.

I took differential equations and advanced probability in college (and did more or less well) and had a nearly perfect math SAT score and I struggled with some of the book. I think it is truly a brilliant work that opened my eyes to the indisputable truth of the value of certain range balancing principals that I previously rejected, but I would classify it as far and away the most mathematically difficult poker book I've ever read by a massive margin and I think I'm more mathematically skilled than 99% of the public and probably 90% of poker players.

[jeffnc]

Nice, thanks guys.