Customer Reviews

Practical Poker Math: Basic Odds & Probabilities for Hold'Em and Omaha

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is actually far shorter than it would first appear because the bulk of the book is taken up by rote calculations of most of the hand possibilities the author discusses.
The use of this abc building block-simple method of breaking down the probabilities/odds is really great for anyone without an extensive understanding of how odds/probabilities in poker hands are calculated because it really breaks it down in an easily understandable step-by-step formulaic way, that allows one to create his own calculations of poker odds and probabilities.
The author also includes his calculations in table form for use as a quick reference.
My only negative comments upon this truly helpful book are that, like the critic below, I believe that there may be some minor inaccuracies in the calculations, and the listed retail price of this book is rather high.
Having said that I strongly believe this book is very helpful to anybody who wonders how Texas Hold 'em odds/probabilities are made, and likely that the cost of the book may be recouped in a short time by any novice money-player who takes the probabilities calculations to heart and uses them appropriately.

The poker world needs more books like Practical Poker Math. This book made difficult topics like odds, probabilities and game theory easy to understand for a beginner like me.

But I almost didn't buy the book because of the review by Herman Jackson and now I'm glad I ignored his review in favor of all the other unanimously favorable ones. And, after having read Practical Poker Math, I know I made the right decision. In Herman's example of the Nut Low, he says the author is talking about flopping a wheel when plainly the author is talking about flopping the nut low to a random board i.e., to a board of 6,7,8,J,J an A2xx is indeed the nut low hand and it is not a wheel. This obvious distortion of the author's intent caused me to look for other reviews he'd done. It seems suspicious that for another odds book (where he was the only reviewer) he gave it a great review while distorting the presentations in Practical Poker Math. Makes me wonder about Herman's hidden agenda.

Anyway, I for one got great value from Practical Poker math and give it 5 stars. I loved the tables and presentation and already it's helped my game as much or more than any other poker book.

I started playing poker with some friends about 1 1/2 years ago. After going through a learning curve I was winning more than I was losing. I then thought I'd try online poker and found that the caliber of players was higher than I was used to and realized I needed to improve my chances. I happened upon Pat Dittmar's book Practical Poker Math and thought I'd take a look at it. I'm a computer professional and the book struck a chord with me because it's very logical. It also doesn't get so complicated that you lose interest and put it aside. After putting some of Dittmar's ideas into play I soon found I was holding my own with the online players. As I get more disciplined about sticking to the math and not letting my adrenaline carry me away I'm winning more and more. This book has paid for itself many times over.

Finally, a book that makes odds, probabilities and expectation easy to understand. The book is well written and the math is easy to follow. Also, it is the only book I know of that deals with the odds in Omaha. Well worth the money!

This is the second book I have read about poker odds and the first I could understand. It is easy to understand, easy to read and best of all I have been winning more since reading it. Well worth buying.

This book essentially (leaving out the vague and unuseable jibber-jabber on game theory) contains tables with poker odds and detailed calculations to derive each and every line of these tables. These calculations, whose mathematical principle is always the same, take up approximately 80% of the pages. Now, let's think about the effect this has:

a) If you don't understand the calculations, you can throw away almost all of the book, except for the odd-tables (which can be found everywhere on the internet for free).

b) If you do understand the calculations, you don't need more than a hundred repetitions to get the principle. Two or three examples are enough.

In addition, the tables themselves are unnecessarily blown up with special cases which make you memorize unneeded things. Example: If the odds that you pair a certain hole card on the flop is approximately 5:1, what would be the odds that you pair an ace on the flop? Did you answer "5:1 as well"? Bingo! Dittmar gives this special case its own line in the table.

To sum up: You'll learn more by reading the relevant Wikipedia-article and should spend your money in the poker room instead of wasting it on this overpriced book!

PS: If you want some serious stuff, buy a Sklansky book.

I have been playing and studying the game of Texas No-limit Holdem over 2 years now. I have mixed feelings about the book, because it provide me some new insights into the game, but I find the book somewhat lacking. The best thing about this book is it introduction and that is why I purchased the book. It included some basic introduction to theory of pokey strategy and how to use the odds to prove your game. Once you get passed the introduction, you will find the book is filled with calculation on how each and very odd is derived, perhaps the author felt he should show all his work so the reader could audit his findings, but I did not find these calculation to be much value. I was not looking to became a poker statistician, I looking for useful information to improve my game.

The most valuable feature of the book is right in the middle that just has the useful odds, which I have been studying and it has helped me think about the game in a much deeper fashion. But I had to go with 3 stars because I really felt the author could have done more with providing information about the application of the odds in the game. Talking a little more in depth about the game theory involved in the game. At the very least the author should have talk about how he himself has used these odds to help his game. He only talk about the use of odds in very general terms.

Bottom line: this isn't a bad book to have, but there are so many other books out there that are much more useful.

I got this book about two weeks ago and immediately disliked the presentation so I put it aside until yesterday. Upon reading it I found more to dislike - much more. I've assigned it ONE STAR only because zero stars is impossible.

I'll avoid picking the nits, though there are several, and just focus on the reason I cannot recommend the book to anyone.

A single example will make my point. On pages 186-187 the author presents his analysis of the odds for hitting the nut low in Omaha/8 holding A2XX.

1. To have the nut low the flop MUST be 345, a fact which he ignores. He considers any flop with three low cards not duplicating the A2 in your hand to be the nut low. Though it would be the nut low AT THAT POINT, you may well be counterfeited and not have the nut low when the hand is over.

2. He then calculates (24 x 23)/(1 x 2) = 276 which he declares to be the number of 2-card combinations that will flop the nut low draw. Obviously here he is considering the first two cards on the flop. Of the six ranks (3-8) we want to see on the flop there are indeed 24 cards that satisfy our need on the first card of the flop but only 20 that do so on the second. His use of 23 in the formula allows duplication of the first card rank by the second card. (If both of the first two flop cards are low the second one will duplicate the first about 13% of the time.) This is because the first low card on the flop renders the remaining 3 cards of that rank useless for our purposes. The third flop card comes from a universe of only 16, a fact that he does get correct.

Finally he arrives at odds of 3.5:1 against flopping the "nut low." Translating these odds into percentage probability of flopping a low 3.5:1 is equivalent to 22% (100/4.5). In short this author is saying that if you hold A2xx you will flop a low hand 22% of the time. Ridiculous!!!

About half the cards in the deck that aren't Aces or Deuces are low so a crude calculation of (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2) = 0.125 = 12.5% gets closer to the truth though it ignores the decreasing number of acceptable cards, leading to an overestimate. You can do the calculations carefully, deal out a couple of hundred hands and count the results, or write a script using perl, VB, or Dos Batch Language and use simulation to get the correct answer of 7%.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to proof the entire book, but this isn't the only calculation error!

Bottom line - If you're buying a book that'll teach you how to calculate percentages and odds BUY ONE THAT DOES IT CORRECTLY. This one doesn't.