Poker: HoH III Workbook - What's your score?

[sabotai]

I know several people here have Harrington On Hold'em III - The Workbook and have read it, and that several others have recently bought it are are getting it.

I got done reading through it last weekend and totaled up my score to be 371, which is "A player with a solid base of skills to build apon." I'm not sure my ability is quite as good as my score, since some of the questions I scored the most possible points on I got for the wrong reasons (His reasoning was different from what I thought).

For me, probably one of the most valuable things in the book is the very last section, Categorizing Your Errors. I have a list of things of things, thanks to this section, that I need to work on. For instance, "Walking Into Traps"has at least 4 dozen questions for it, and I got at least half of them wrong (Did not score the max amount of points)

So anyway, what's your score and did you learn of any weaknesses in your game?

[kingfc22]

Just go the book about 10 days ago and I plan on starting to go through it sometime this week.

[SirFozzie]

Me too. in fact, I've decided that I'm going to completely reread I and II, because at the lowlevel tournament level, I've turned into a donkey.

[kcchief19]

Me too. in fact, I've decided that I'm going to completely reread I and II, because at the lowlevel tournament level, I've turned into a donkey.
Part of that is because it's hard to out donkey a donkey. I used to use a "steps" strategy with my tournament play, starting out at the lowest buy-in SnGs and working my way up to higher buy-ins, the dropping back if I struggle. I'm no great shakes at the poker table, but I've since abandoned that strategy. I find myself much more successful at short-handed tables, turbos and higher buy-ins than I am in a $10 SnG. Of course, maybe that's because I'm the donkey at the bigger tables. :)

I definitely see your point in MTT play. I'm starting reread HOH and will be picking up No. 3 to try and improve my MTT play. I'm better at navigating the early stages than I used to be through tighter play, but I tend to make one big donkey play when the chip stakes get a little bit bigger and before you hit money.

I definitely need to check out the worksheet. I've been trying out PokerAce recently and realized that I'm still putting money into the pot much too frequently and I'm way too passive most of the time.

[SirFozzie]

My problem is more that I am too agressive at pushing at flops that seemingly miss me. The problem is, either I push too agressively at the flop and end up pot comitted.. or I don't push enough and feel like I need to make a 2nd bet at the pot.

[GoldenEagle]

I have picked it up but I will not get around to it for quite some time.

[Barkeep49]

I am rather slowly working through it. I am excited to see how it'll all combine at the end.

[Fighter of Foo]

I only purchased Volume II because I am quite possibly the worst heads up player in the world.

I'll probably go to the bookstore and take a look at this at some point, but could someone write up a quick overview?

[kcchief19]

My problem is more that I am too agressive at pushing at flops that seemingly miss me. The problem is, either I push too agressively at the flop and end up pot comitted.. or I don't push enough and feel like I need to make a 2nd bet at the pot.
That last thing has been a very hard thing for me to do too. I think one of the dumbest things I do at a poker table is too frequently bluff twice at a pot. You bluff once and get your information, but bluffing twice more often than not gets me into trouble.

[Maple Leafs]

That last thing has been a very hard thing for me to do too. I think one of the dumbest things I do at a poker table is too frequently bluff twice at a pot. You bluff once and get your information, but bluffing twice more often than not gets me into trouble.
It depends what levels you're playing at, though. At low levels, some people will call just about any bet once because they feel like they're being pushed around and need to show that they play tough. The second bet tells them you're serious (watch how often it's insta-folded because the other guy has already checked his "fold to any bet" button).

Of course, you feel like an idiot when it doesn't work.

[dixieflatline]

I only purchased Volume II because I am quite possibly the worst heads up player in the world.

I'll probably go to the bookstore and take a look at this at some point, but could someone write up a quick overview?

I just purchased it today so someone who has actually read it can add more. It basically is a book full of hand examples/questions with complete explaination of what to do and why. Pulling togather info from volume 1&2 from what I understand.

[Radii]

I just finished this today. I scored a 410, which I think is a bit high. I'm a winner so far at the levels of tournaments I play(both SNG/MTT) but I have never ventured to any reasonable buyin and I don't feel that great about my play at the level I'm at.

I haven't categorized my errors yet, I'll sit down and do that soon.

[Maple Leafs]

I finished it over the weekend and scored a 366, which according to the book is "Just slightly worse than Sabotai".

I probably cost myself about 20 points by not being able to get my head around the format a few times. If I wanted to play a hand conservatively on question A but the "you actually" result was an aggressive play, I couldn't seem to get myself into that mindset. Once I'd decided I was going to fold pre-flop, I couldn't think like I'd raised instead.

I do have to say that the book is far, far more useful than I thought. When I read "workbook" I was thinking nothing but question/answer, but this thing is gold even if you never put pencil to paper at all.

Question: There's a section at the end that's meant to help you identify leaks in your game based on which questions you got wrong. My first thought when I saw that was "wow, that would be super-useful", since I know I have some major leaks. My second thought was "wow, what a pain in the ass to go back and figure that out". So has anybody actually done that section, and if so do you think it's worthwhile?

[sabotai]

So has anybody actually done that section, and if so do you think it's worthwhile?

Yes and yes. Although, looking back, it's something I should have kept track of as I went...but oh well. It actually didn't take that long. Basically, if you got the first few right for one of the errors, I just went to the next. If I got the first several wrong, I wrote down the error and went to the next. IOW, I didn't check for each and everyone question listed for each error, just enough so that I had a general idea of if I made the error frequently or not.

(But then again, I wrote down all my answers on a piece of paper and easily checked that for each questions. If you wrote your answers in the book itself, I can see how much more of a pain that would be)

[Simms]

I finished the workbook section (scored 402)...haven't done the analysis part yet, but I have no doubt that it will be worthwhile.

I was skeptical of the format going in, but overall, the book was extremely helpful.

[QuikSand]

Mrs Q and I are going through it, and keeping score, pretty slowly -- just doing one or two problems per evening. I'll have scores to post in a few weeks, I guess. She's bound and determined to catch up to me, as I currently lead by about 20 points.

[Maple Leafs]

(But then again, I wrote down all my answers on a piece of paper and easily checked that for each questions. If you wrote your answers in the book itself, I can see how much more of a pain that would be)
I really, really wish I'd made copies of the scoring pages and worked from those. What a pain to keep flipping back and forth.

[TroyF]

I think I came in at 367. (I have to look to be sure) A majority of my faults are of not being aggressive enough either before the flop or on the flop. When it hits the turn, I'm just fine, but I'm playing to tight and weak in those two areas.

It's simply killing me in the middle of tournaments. I start off fine. Build up a decent stack and then get passive in the middle. . . right where I should be trying to build on my early success. I've been playing a lot of 180 player SnG's on poker stars lately. Of the last four I've done, my lowest finish is in the 60's. My highest is just in the money at 17.

The middle is slaughtering me now.

[hoopsguy]

Is anyone else having problems with recognizing some of the example hands from when they were actually played? For example, the early Jennifer Harmon hand ... I definitely recall that one from the WSOP. It is a little bit distracting to not get results-oriented when you know the outcome, although Harrington is not results-oriented in terms of rating "good" or "bad" plays on these hands.

[TredWel]

Was able to get some time this weekend to work on the book. Scored a 419, but I'm not sure how accurate that number really is. I'd like to think I can play as well as my answers, but when it's my money on the line, I find myself reverting to my natural weak-tight cocoon of nitness.

Still, this was an extremely enjoyable read. I look forward to revewing my answers and finding what leaks I have. What feels like the biggest leak is evaluating my hand v. my opponent's range of hands on later streets, I often felt lost on questions that dealt with that.

[QuikSand]

Mrs Q and I just finished getting through this... I scored 400 to her 358. I found the discussion of bet sizes to be particularly helpful. I found a number of places where I quarrel with his logic a bit, but by and large it has been a very useful experience.