Hellmuth – Synopsis | Dusty Schmidt

Don’t Listen To Phil Hellmuth

Synopsis

Don’t Listen To Phil Hellmuth marks not just a poker revolution, but an evolution as well. For those who’ve long wondered why their games can’t make the leap into profitability, the answer has arrived in the form of a question: Have you ever considered that much of what stands for today’s mainstream poker theory is incorrect?

See if you recognize any of these commonly held beliefs: Pre-flop play doesn’t matter that much. The key to getting paid off is playing loose so no one can put you in a hand. Make big 3-bets to end the hand now. Calling is weak. You have to bet this flop because you don’t want to give up.

While there is an element of truth to some of these statements, they are by and large major misconceptions. With their new book, authors Dusty Schmidt and Paul Hoppe focus on taking apart the 50 greatest fallacies in poker — many of which represent pillars of the way the game is played. No one is spared: world champions, television commentators … even the authors themselves.

All in all, Don’t Listen To Phil Hellmuth is a devastating blow to poker’s old guard; a shock to the game’s collective system. Like Schmidt’s world-renowned book, Treat Your Poker Like A Business, this book covers the most prominent scenarios, providing solutions to situations that arise every 10 minutes rather than once a month. Mind you: this is not a from-the-sidelines critique of poker luminaries, but rather a comprehensive guide that departs from the “one-size-fits-all” advice so common today. Readers will find Don’t Listen To Phil Hellmuth to be a sweeping manual that completely troubleshoots the entire poker process.

Read the introduction to Don’t Listen To Phil Hellmuth below.

I. 50 Misconceptions

Misconception 1. Avoid Tough Decisions
Misconception 2. Preflop Play Doesn’t Matter That Much
Misconception 3. Starting Hand Charts Are For Beginners
Misconception 4. Pick A Style And Stick With It
Misconception 5. The Key To Getting Paid Off Is Playing Loose So No One Can Put You On A Hand
Misconception 6. Supertight Is Better Than Tight
Misconception 7. Make All Your Preflop Raises The Same Size
Misconception 8. Punish The Limpers!
Misconception 9. Punish The Nits!
Misconception 10. 3-Betting Makes Me Tough
Misconception 11. Do Not Touch My Blinds
Misconception 12. The Small Blind Is Impossible To Play
Misconception 13. Suited Connectors Win All The Big Pots In No Limit Holdem
Misconception 14. Bring Your Big Guns To A War!
Misconception 15. Make Big 3-Bets To End The Hand Now
Misconception 16. Make One Decision At A Time
Misconception 17. “The key to No Limit Hold’em is to put a man to a decision for all his chips”
Misconception 18. Calling Is Weak
Misconception 19. You Can’t Make That Play Unless You Balance It
Misconception 20. I Have To Bet This Flop Because I Don’t Want To Give Up
Misconception 21. Checking And Folding The Flop Is Weak
Misconception 22. Never Leave Your Children Out There
Misconception 23. Always C-bet The Same Amount
Misconception 24. Save The Small Bets For The Kiddie Game
Misconception 25. Call Now. Reevaluate The Turn.
Misconception 26. Great Players Never Fold The Best Hand
Misconception 27. If You Have The Best Hand, Raise!
Misconception 28. Raise To Find Out Where You Stand
Misconception 29. Lead Out To Find Out Where You Stand
Misconception 30. Don’t Donk
Misconception 31. Always Play Your Draws Aggressively-
Misconception 32. Don’t Get Blown Off Your Hand
Misconception 33. Never Bet The Minimum
Misconception 34. Real Men Make Real Raises
Misconception 35. You Need A Monster To Get Involved Against A Bet And A Raise
Misconception 36. Don’t Bluff In Multiway Pots
Misconception 37. Your Bluff Should Tell A Story
Misconception 38. Sell Your Hand
Misconception 39. Bet Big With Your Big Hands
Misconception 40. Great Players Always Make Thin Value Bets
Misconception 41. Find A Hand You Can Beat
Misconception 42. When A Line Makes No Sense, Call Down
Misconception 43. Don’t Call Without A Hand
Misconception 44. The More You Bet, The More They Fold
Misconception 45. Focus On The Tough Players
Misconception 46. The Great Players Are Crazy
Misconception 47. A Mistake Is A Mistake
Misconception 48. Never Back Down
Misconception 49. Win Rate Is A Constant
Misconception 50. Poker Is Just A Game

II. 25 Hands With Dusty

III. Quizzes

Introduction

What if many of the fundamental “truths” you’ve heard about poker turned out to be false?

Recognize any of these commonly held beliefs?

Preflop play doesn’t matter that much.
The key to getting paid off is playing loose so no one can put you on a hand.
Bigger 3-bets get more folds.
Calling is weak.
You have to bet this flop because you don’t want to give up.

There is certainly an element of truth to some of these statements, but by and large they are big misconceptions. Perhaps this shouldn’t bother us because, as poker pros, we profit off the mistakes of others. But when we see so many high-level players making so many fundamental mistakes in their games, and having those moves endorsed by television announcers, it’s enough to make us scream, “Stop! That’s not how it’s done!”

This book focuses on correcting the greatest fallacies in poker. There are an astonishing number of them, providing our common understanding of the game with an incredibly shaky foundation. This did not come entirely as a surprise.

Like many new players, we struggled to sift through all the competing voices. One author would say this, another would say that. For Dusty, it took more than 3 million hands to generate an income that exceeded the sum total of his bonuses.

Hoping to give our readers a better leg up than we had, we systematically take on what we recognize as flawed advice. The two of us have combed through more than four decades of conventional poker wisdom. No one is spared: world champions, on-air commentators or other flavors of the month. Not even we are excluded from our criticism. One by one, we challenge each misconception, taking on what we feel are the top 50 ways to lose at poker. By proving these misconceptions false, we think we benefit our readers in such a way that, by implementing these newfound understandings, they can become more profitable tomorrow.

We want this book to ultimately function as a FactCheck.org or “MythBusters” for poker. We hope you’ll come to look at us as watchdogs out to protect your interests by questioning the powers that be.

As we did in our previous books, Treat Your Poker Like A Business and Way of the Poker Warrior, in this book we cover the game’s most frequent scenarios, seeking to provide solutions to situations that arise every 10 minutes rather than once a month. Our criteria for choosing misconceptions were simple. Are they costing people money, and can we prove it? We hope to relate with our readers, letting them know that the scenario that’s vexing them now once did the same to us.

Unlike our previous books, this is a comprehensive manual that aims to troubleshoot the poker process from the top down, complete with hand analyses and a reader quiz at book’s end.

The process of writing this book has led us to think about coaching. Golfers don’t have 10 swing coaches. Baseball players don’t have 10 hitting coaches. Football teams don’t have 10 offensive coordinators. But in poker, we tend to entertain advice from all comers, which leads to confusion and a fragmented playing style. Why do we do this?

Profit motive.

Poker advice is one part technical or mechanical, and one part investment tip. All of us are looking for that hot lead that will get us ahead of the competition. It’s certainly understandable. But with this wider mesh, we’re letting in some voices that don’t deserve to be there.

In sports and money management, ascension through the coaching/advising ranks is mostly a meritocracy. The rubber inevitably meets the road. Your pedigree might have gotten you in the door. But there’ll be no place to hide when they tally the wins and losses. This is not yet the case in poker, where instructional straw men are still hiding in plain sight.

This is because about seven years ago, poker experienced exponential growth that was virtually unprecedented in any sport.

When the World Series of Poker started in 1971, everyone started at the final table and the participants voted to determine who won. Even at its pre-2003 height, the main event included far fewer players than it does today. You didn’t need to be the best player in the world to win. You only had to be the best player in Las Vegas.

Then in 2003, ESPN made the brilliant decision to install hole-card cameras in the tables. An accountant named Chris Moneymaker won the event, and that’s when things got interesting. It was great fortune meeting great opportunity: the masterstroke of letting the audience know more than the players, fused with an amateur with a Hollywood surname. Poker went from being 10 times more boring than golf to being 10 times more popular in an instant.

Within three years, the number of World Series of Poker entrants rose tenfold, from 839 in 2003 to 8,773 in 2006, with each person willing to lay down a $10,000 entry fee for the privilege.

It was at this point where poker stardom took on the look of Creationism rather than Evolution. TV execs came looking for stars, and Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, et al, were the big names of the day. They managed to be standing at the right place at the right time when the guys with cameras asked, “Hey, you want to be famous?”

These anointed ones made their bones at a period in poker that was much like golf in 1910, when you could win the U.S. Open shooting 20 over par while drunk on the back nine. Even so, poker books, DVDs and announcing gigs followed for these guys, all proffering instruction that might not have been that good in the first place and hasn’t really changed in seven years. Today they are offering commentary on a game that has moved on without them.

Listening to their advice today, we feel like we’re hearing Lee Iacocca profess that his 1988 K-cars remain superior to modern-day models with front-wheel drive and computer-assisted design. Germs of advice that were either misguided to begin with, or were OK in small doses but not large ones, have metastasized into bloated edicts that never deserved to be sacred. Like perfume, a little bit of this advice was fine, but too much of it is odorous.

A lot of this issue comes down to how poker is played. Once upon a time, check/raising was thought of as unethical because it was deceitful. Now, not check/raising is referred to as “donk” betting, as in, “You’re a donkey for betting there instead of check/raising.” The point is, the game evolves. Players must evolve with it or perish.

We think it’s time to tip these sacred cows, to set fire to these paper lions. If we want to make seismic gains in our profitability, all of us need to question the fundamental things we think we know about poker.

“Checking and folding the flop is weak.” Not necessarily.
“Always C-bet the same amount.” Not without considering the board texture and how your opponent will respond to different sizes.
“Save the small bets for the kiddie game.” Not even close.
“Great players never fold the best hand.” It’s impossible to win without ever folding the best hand.
“Raise to find out where you stand.” A classic Hellmuth-ism, and a total misconception.
“The key to No Limit Hold ‘em is to put a man to a decision for all his chips.” There’s a lot right about this one from Doyle Brunson, but a lot wrong, as well.
“You are either a passive player or an aggressive one.” Style is no substitute for thinking. A good player makes the most profitable decision regardless of whether it’s passive or aggressive.

Part of determining what’s really right and wrong in the poker lexicon will start with you winnowing down the number of voices in your head and organizing the learning process. In choosing a coach, we’re huge believers in following someone who is or has been a big winner in the game you’re playing.

Should this player be an online player or a live one? You can become great playing either. We’re online players and might be perceived as biased, but the fact is we have the luxury of establishing our credentials faster.

Online can put up graphs that no mathematician can argue with. We’re able to play more hands in a month than a live player can in a year; thus in 12 months of poker per year, we get in more than a decade worth of hands relative to a live player.

Are we saying that we know more about the game than many, if not most, of the authorities out there? Well, yes. Fortunately we are up to the challenge of proving it, as we think we do in the pages that follow.

In any case, it’s our belief that we need to question the voices in our heads. We’re talking about an evolution, people.

— Dusty Schmidt and Paul Hoppe