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Server Time: 8/30/2008 6:09:23 AM PACIFIC |
 Lou Kreiger's politics? Out of place in a poker book?, noiseboy, 14. Oct 2003 11:37 | ||
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| I just picked up a copy of More Hold'em Excellence, from a brief preview of the book, it looks like a pretty good primer on basic strategy. However, as I start to read the preface, he goes into this long tirade against liberals and how our PC-ness is ruining society and causing most of the problems that we'd like to fix, and how regulations are bad, then somehow relates this to poker as a model of utopian capitalism. I love to play poker because it allows me to indulge my primal instincts for greed and aggression, but I just don't see that as a model for the perfect society. Anyway, I find it kinda funny that he uses poker as an analogy for the perfect libertarian capitalistic world, when he is in fact writing a book about LIMIT poker. As we all know, LIMIT poker is a game designed by poker rooms so that the fish can lose their money more slowly to the good players so that the room makes more on time or rake. In essence, it's a social program pure and simple designed to keep people from going broke, ie, a "safety net". Also, even the rules of NL and PL poker are regulated to make it fair to the poor. For instance, if you didn't have a limited buy-in and table stakes rules, then someone like Bill Gates would win every single poker hand. This could be compared to the anti-trust legislation which is supposed to keep the big companies from squashing out all competition so that they can then gouge us like crazy. Yep, it's another social program, or "leveling the playing field" if you will. What about the rake? Yep, you are paying taxes so that you can benefit from a safe, legal and hopefully secure place to play, a good dealer, chip runners, etc... Just like if you drive a car, you shouldn't mind paying taxes to fix the roads. Anyway, I see poker as a model of regulated capitalism, not unfettered anything goes capitalism, and I think that the fact that there are these rules to level the playing field doesn't detract at all from the basic merit-based nature of the game. In limit poker, bad players lose and good players win, but it's not quite as brutal as No Limit. So anyway, in a long winded way, I'm getting to the question of whether you think political screeds are out of place in a poker book? At least he put it in the preface. Anyway, it's all good, I just got a little PO'ed that I paid twenty dollars to be told that I'm somehow ruining the world with my good intentions. I know Gary Carson has politics way out on the left end of the spectrum, but he doesn't put them in his books. Actually, most poker books seem devoid of political content. Hopefully the rest of the book will make up for it with good poker knowledge! :) | ||
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| Re: Lou Kreiger's politics? Out of place in a poker book?, ReMMy, 14. Oct 2003 11:44 | ||
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| That's the beauty of writing your own book, you can put what you want in it...and if people don't like what you write, they don't have to buy it =) Let us know what you think of the book when you're done. | ||
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| Re: Lou Kreiger's politics? Out of place in a poker book?, Lou Krieger, 14. Oct 2003 12:08 | ||
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| Since I wrote the book, I feel I ought to reply. I put that material in the preface to paint a picture of the context within which I view poker. Poker is a model, in my opinion, for much of life, and this paradigm has particular relevance to our capitalistic economic system. That you're not as fond as I am of capitalism, libertarianism, and a sort of Spartan sense of self-reliance, is, of course, your choice and your right, and I suppose one day another author will come along and write a book in which they see poker as a model for other economic "isms." And you know what? If it's a good poker book, I'm gonna buy it, read it, learn from it, and improve my game. Perhaps Gary Carson will do just that. While his economic and political are for the most part very different from mine, I certainly have tremendous respect for him as a poker author and would look forward to reading anything he wrote about the game. After all, I don't have to agree with an author's every view on each and every subject to respect his views on poker. Now, as to your comments on table stakes and what would happen if you could bring all you owned to the table and Bill Gates showed up: If the rules allowed one to reach back into his or her wallet during the play of the hand, and you had to either match the bet or lose, there would obviously be no game, so that's not a point worth debating. Nevertheless, it sounds like you posted your missal after reading only that beginning section, and I hope the knowledge you gain from reading the book will be translated into know-how at the poker table. And if you don't like my capitalistic-libertarian views, don't worry -- you're certainly not alone. And, what's more, you get to cancel out my vote at the polls. Lou Krieger Raise your game with Lou Krieger, author of "Poker For Dummies" and five other books about poker, at Royal Vegas Poker http://www.royalvegaspoker.com/lou | ||
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| Re: Lou Kreiger's politics? Out of place in a poker book?, noiseboy, 14. Oct 2003 12:42 | ||
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| Hi there Lou, No worries about putting that in your book, I actually think its fine since I assume it's mostly confined to the preface. And as a firm believer in free speech, you could put whatever you want in your book. Maybe when I write my book, it will include a "limit poker is like socialized medicine" chapter. ;) My point was mostly just that even the world of Poker has quite a bit of regulations designed to keep the fish a'swimmin. Anyway, I love capitalism, and meritocracy, but at the same time don't want to go back to the "good old days" before labor unions won us the forty hour work week and the week-end, or before child labor laws. I like freedom, and am probably an anarchist at heart, but unfortunately anarchism would only work if people were all basically good, which they are not. The only thing I don't get is the argument that social problems are somehow caused by the programs designed to solve or ameliorate them, but there, I think we can just agree to disagree. :) | ||
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| Re: Lou Kreiger's politics? Out of place in a poker book?, shorn, 15. Oct 2003 12:08 | ||
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| Let's not go there again noise... :) | ||
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| Re: Lou Kreiger's politics? Out of place in a poker book?, LJH, 15. Oct 2003 09:39 | ||
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| DEAR LOU, I HAVE READ ALL YOUR BOOKS AND COLUMNS IN " CARD PLAYER" FOR SOME TIME, AND YOU REALLY HAVE GOOD IDEAS AND TELL IT LIKE IT IS. WHAT HAS POLITICS GOT TO DO WITH IT. YOU AND I WERE BROUGHT UP THE HARD WAY IN A DEPRESSION GENERATION, AND KNOW WHAT IT IS TO MAKE A BUCK, AND TO UNDERSTAND WHAT OUR COUNTRY IS LIKE. IF NOISEBOY CANNOT UNDERSTAND YOUR PHILOSOPHY HE CAN STILL GET GOOD POKER IDEAS FROM YOU. KEEP WRITING LJH | ||
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| Re: Lou Kreiger's politics? Out of place in a poker book?, LJH, 15. Oct 2003 09:33 | ||
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| DEAR NOISEBOY, ARE YOU TELLING US THAT YOU REALLY DISLIKED HIS BOOK!!! FOR SHAME, WHY NOT READ IT FULLY AND FIND OUT IF IT IS REALLY THAT TERRIBLE.PLEASE TELL US WHEN YOU REALLY LIKE A BOOK. LJH | ||
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| Re: Lou Kreiger's politics? Out of place in a poker book?, noiseboy, 17. Oct 2003 10:04 | ||
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| No, I actually like it a lot, it has a lot of good poker advice. Much of it isn't really new or revolutionary, but it's so well written that it makes it very easy to understand for new players. I'm just kinda ribbing him a little on how he sneakily brings his politics into it. I laughed out loud at the "Nixon took some bad beats" analogy to Watergate. If you play 72o for a raise under the gun, and end up getting trapped and losing all your money, that's not a bad beat, that's a self-inflicted wound. I understand where he's coming from though, on some issues, I'm probably in agreement with him. For instance, if we are going to do a war, which I'm usually against starting, we need to put everything we can into it, to minimize casualties and bring it to a quick conclusion. Just like in poker, if you slowplay too much, you turn winning hands into losing hands. But if you play aggressive, it's often the reverse. | ||
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