Every Hand Revealed

[Kurn]

Thanks again to RD for recommending the book.

Very enjoyable read, I'm about halfway through. Gus' personality comes through, especially his slightly politically incorrect ethnicity references ("crazy Italian", "Mr. Quach had a Chinaman's chance of having a better hand")

What comes through clearly is that Gus is a math guy. Sure, he is a pro who reads people well, but much of his style of play is based firmly on mathematical probabilities, the primary one being that 67% of the time your opponent misses the flop.

Without spoiling anything, the book is one tournament, the 2007 Aussie Millions, and he discusses every hand he played.

The book might even make a math guy like me believe I can actually learn to play like Gus.

Or maybe not.

[Talking Poker]

I own this book but haven't opened it yet. Thanks for the recommendation... maybe someday I'll make time.

[Reel Deal]

Yeah, very good book. I got about 250 pages in and decided to start back at the beginning and highlight various passages.

[Kurn]

I'm close to the end, Gus is HU with Gobboboy. I suspect most of the wisdom in the book has been delivered, so here is a short analysis.

In one part, Gus stresses that 4 things can happen in a hand:

1) You have a good hand, he has a bad hand - YOU WIN
2) He has a good hand, you have a bad hand - HE WINS
3) You both have good hands - FIREWORKS
4) You both have bad hands - YOUR OPPORTUNITY

I'd like to expand on that, since in some ways (to me at least) that reads like preflop raise, steal the blinds, which is find as far as it goes, but lets go to the flop if you've been called. (The following is me speaking, not Gus so feel free to attack like ravenous vampires)

Post flop(percentages assume the standard, you miss the flop 2/3 of the time and a HU pot)

1) You hit, he misses - 22.25%
2) He hits, you miss - 22.25%
3) You both hit - 11%
4) You both miss - 44.5%

Now obviously, there will be aberrations, multiway pots, donkeys, etc. But for the sake of analysis, let's ignore scenarios 1 & 2 by assuming that you and the caller play perfectly and they cancel each other out.

Scenario 3 is where the real skill comes in. This is where the ability to players on hands and recognize strength and weakness determines to an extent, how often you win big pots. regardless, this is where those pesky Poker Gods have the most impact, but it is also the least probable outcome.

That leaves scenario 4 as the place where you have your best opportunity to accumulate chips. Sure, you will tend to bust out early when the stars don't align, but really Hourly rate > ROI, so you'd probably rather have the times you don't make it to the final 1% of players last the shortest amount of time.

I also took Gus' advice on how to play postflop OOP. Calling a raise in a blind, he is a strong advocate of leading out when you either hit the flop and/or when it seems likely the raiser did not. It sure worked last night. And, since leading out means often you fold to a raise by the PF raiser, you get a lot of action when you do hit a big hand.

All in all, I find this a lot more satisfying plan of attack than Daniel N's small ball.

Comments?

[thrash1294]

nice overview good post.

[melioris]

I am too lazy to dig up the post, but how does this compare to Hershel's MTT strategy?

[Zybomb]

I am almost all the way through this book. I haven't really read poker books in a very long time, but this one seemed interesting, not necessarily for informational purposes but just as an interesting read. I'll comment fully once Im totally done, but I will say that damn Gus receives very very very little resistance from his competition. His CBs are like taking down pots 90% of the time. Either I get played back at a shitload or my opponents just hit a lot more often than his have been!