Players ask me all the time what I think the beatability of video poker will be five years from now. In truth, I just don’t know. There’s at least a possibility that I’ll need to look beyond video poker to keep my time and my mind occupied.
I’m looking at live poker as a fall-back position. I probably won’t actually play much poker down the road, but I’m preparing for it “in case.” I’m 64 years old and studying and retaining information does come as quickly to me as it did decades ago. Still, even if I never use the information I’m accumulating, I enjoy the learning process. Studying is one of my hobbies and I see it as a good use of my time. In addition to the fact that every now and then I learn something from reading about poker that I can use to improve my video poker skills as well.
I’ve casually read CardPlayer and other casino-freebie poker magazines for years, and in the past few months I’ve read some or all of poker books by Annie Duke, Andy Bloch, and Blair Rodman preparing for my Gambling with an Edge radio show (Thursdays 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time — 1230 AM in Las Vegas — www.klav1230am.com streamed live — old shows archived on www.bobdancer.com). A few months ago I even participated in a free media tournament at the WSOP.
Since this week’s radio guest, Ed Miller, recently released an eBook called How to Read Hands at No-Limit Hold’Em, I figured this was another opportunity for me to skim the book while sort of preparing for my down-the-road career.
Wrong!
Miller’s book is not meant for skimming. It actually assigns homework! One of the early examples: Assume a player raises pre-flop and you speculate him holding AA-TT, AKs-AQs, AKo-AQo (in poker notation, “s” means suited and “o” means off-suited, which I call unsuited in video poker). The flop comes out Kd 9d 4c. Miller asks: What percentage of the time will the player hold KK or better?
This is not a particularly difficult problem, but it does require learning the technique (similar to techniques useful in certain types of video poker analysis), calculating, and the more you do this type of exercise, the easier it will get. It’s easy for me to see that knowing this information (by doing the calculation) will help me make the right fold-call-raise decision. Maybe someday I’ll be experienced enough so this kind of calculation will be a snap, but that day hasn’t arrived yet. If I want to move forward in my poker education I need to do the homework! So I’ve been doing it.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I think it’s good. In my opinion this book provides an excellent way to learn an important skill. This particular skill won’t come automatically, at least not to me, but now I have a roadmap I can follow. And it’s a roadmap that makes sense to me.
Miller is a good teacher. When I finish this book (It’s only 190 pages but it will take awhile to do all the homework) I’ll start in on another one of his books. When you find a teacher you can learn from, stay with that teacher. I will. Even if poker turns out to be a game I never end up playing very much.
Miller has indicated that he will offer listeners to the interview this Thursday night a discount on certain of his eBooks. Ed did comp me two of his books for review purposes. This is a typical courtesy provided to media. Other than that, I’m neither asking for nor receiving any payment for recommending his books. I simply think they are very good.