[bolgenmod]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

How many of you have finished it? The stuff at the end (concepts and weapons or whatever) seems pretty interesting. But I'm a weirdo that refuses to jump around in books until I read them all the way through.

Yeltzen -- a weirdo??? Say it ain't so!!!

Of course I have finished the book (two times already), and I have to say that not only was the second part very interesting, it also seemed MUCH easier to understand. On my first reading, I thought it might be because I had read the first part, but on my second reading I still found the first part harder to understand. (If that makes sense.)

I also wondered if it was because these sections were shorter, but I usually have no problem understanding longer more complex arguments. And some of the chapters in the first part were short too. So now I wonder if it is not that the second part is more grounded in specifics.

That said, I am still puzzled by why I have so much trouble understanding this book. I read TOP very early in my poker-playing, and I didn't have much trouble understanding it, even when the examples were from games I didn't play. Hell, at that point, I hadn't played much poker at all, but I still understood the book. (Yes, my understanding of it has deepened as I have played more yadayadayada, but not THAT much. And I have no problem with the awkward language of the full-on Sklansky -- maybe reading all those student papers has inured me to poor use of language and/or made me more skillful at inferring what the writer means as opposed to what is actually written!)

The point is -- even if I don't play much NL ring, why am I having so much trouble with this book? I read HOH before I had played many tournaments, and I not only understood it, I used it to improve my game. Anyway, enough whining (cue the WAAHbulance) -- Thanks Yeltzen for your posts: it makes me feel like I am not the only one puzzled by things in this book. And since you have much more experience and much more skill at NL ring than I, I am trying to hope that it is not me, but the book.

[yeltzen]

Originally Posted by bolgenmod

Yeltzen -- a weirdo??? Say it ain't so!!!

Of course I have finished the book (two times already), and I have to say that not only was the second part very interesting, it also seemed MUCH easier to understand. On my first reading, I thought it might be because I had read the first part, but on my second reading I still found the first part harder to understand. (If that makes sense.)

I also wondered if it was because these sections were shorter, but I usually have no problem understanding longer more complex arguments. And some of the chapters in the first part were short too. So now I wonder if it is not that the second part is more grounded in specifics.

That said, I am still puzzled by why I have so much trouble understanding this book. I read TOP very early in my poker-playing, and I didn't have much trouble understanding it, even when the examples were from games I didn't play. Hell, at that point, I hadn't played much poker at all, but I still understood the book. (Yes, my understanding of it has deepened as I have played more yadayadayada, but not THAT much. And I have no problem with the awkward language of the full-on Sklansky -- maybe reading all those student papers has inured me to poor use of language and/or made me more skillful at inferring what the writer means as opposed to what is actually written!)

The point is -- even if I don't play much NL ring, why am I having so much trouble with this book? I read HOH before I had played many tournaments, and I not only understood it, I used it to improve my game. Anyway, enough whining (cue the WAAHbulance) -- Thanks Yeltzen for your posts: it makes me feel like I am not the only one puzzled by things in this book. And since you have much more experience and much more skill at NL ring than I, I am trying to hope that it is not me, but the book.

Well, first of all, I definitely do NOT have more experience than you with NL ring games. I never play them. I mostly only play tournaments and limit HE/Stud games. So, obviously, the book isn't going to be totally clear to me because I don't have much experience.

However, I think the biggest thing is that I just don't have enough hand-reading experience, either. I don't really practice it because I rarely need it. It's virtually useless in low limit games, and in tournaments I'm usually just passing time and I don't pay as much attention as I should. If I concentrated on learning how to read hands, this book would probably make a lot more sense to me and be a lot more useful. Right now it's just one of those books that I read and say "hm interesting" or "wtf?" My goal is to start playing NL ring games this year, though, so hopefully that will change.

I also read TOP as my first book and didn't have many problems with it. Probably because everything was so general.