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Lou Krieger is one of the most prolific and well-regarded poker authors around, having written or co-written 11 different books on poker and gambling as well as numerous columns for various publications over the last two decades. Krieger is also the editor of Poker Player Newspaper and hosts a weekly podcast called “Keep Flopping Aces.”

Given his authorship of so many poker titles and his familiarity with the publishing industry, I thought Krieger would be an interesting person to talk to about the current status of poker books and how that status may have changed over the years. We ended up discussing a number of topics when I appeared on his podcast recently, but I’d like to share with you some excerpts from the part of our discussion that specifically dealt with poker books and publishing.

I began my questions of Krieger with one about an ad for an online poker site I recently saw that had something to say about poker books.

Short-Stacked Shamus: In the latest issue of Bluff Magazine one finds an ad for Full Tilt Poker. On the left-hand side of the ad there is a stack of books with the following written over them: “Books can tell you about the strategies, the common scenarios, the mathematics, odds and proven methods, and all the ways you are supposed to play the game.” Then over on the right one sees a photo of Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, next to whom is written “But books don’t play poker.”

As someone who has written a lot of poker strategy books and has thought a lot about the purposes they serve, how do you respond to the ideas present in an ad like that?

Lou Krieger: First of all, I think it’s a good ad, because it’s compelling.

SSS: Yes, it is.

LK: Secondly, I think where it sort of leads you astray is that yes, you know, [the ad is right to say that] books can tell you things but they don’t play poker… they certainly don’t play poker at the level of Chris Ferguson. Anybody who thinks that his book will make somebody a poker player of the ability of Chris Ferguson is absolutely mad. It will not.

For me, I consciously said to myself when I sat down to write my books, “Who am I writing for? What’s the audience?” I have always written pretty much for the beginning and moderate poker player because that audience is infinitely larger than a book I could write that will be helpful to somebody at Ferguson’s level.

SSS: I guess in terms of achieving the widest possible audience, too, you might write a very useful and interesting book to the more experienced player, but you’re destined to sell fewer copies of a book like that.

LK: Yes, absolutely. And that’s the truth of almost any how-to book that you can imagine. All of the books on how to improve your golf or how to play tennis, they’re not aimed at the pros. They are aimed at the players of limited ability like the vast majority of us are who are going to go out and buy those books.

SSS: You’ve written 11 books. The first one was Hold’em Excellence, yes?

LK: Right. That was written in 1995, I believe. Way before the poker boom started… it was a totally different universe.

I wrote Hold’em Excellence and More Hold’em Excellence, which was the follow up to it. Then I had a proposal to do Poker for Dummies. I really wanted to do a “For Dummies” book because I thought that, you know, there’s a book that’s a brand, and if I do a “For Dummies” poker book it really legitimizes me in terms of being a good poker writer and in the marketplace, because it’s a big huge publisher and not a small self-published book.

[So I did] Poker for Dummies [with Richard D. Harroch], then the poker boom hit. It sounds like the dark ages, but it was less than a decade ago. Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker, and every publisher and his brother wanted a poker book written.

Since I already had books out and I’d written a “For Dummies” book I was a known quantity so they called me. I wound up writing about five or six books in four years. It was just nonstop writing, and I knew that I might as well do it now because this poker boom is going to be like hula hoops… it ain’t lasting forever. So as long as they’re sending me advances and asking me to write a book for them, I might as well say yes. And so I kept writing books. I think one year I had four books come out, which is just insane.

SSS: Tell me about your motives for writing poker books.

LK: I think the motivation for writing is twofold. Number one is I like to write. So I enjoy writing. And [number two,] the process of writing, of having to put words on paper, forces you to clarify your thoughts. You can’t be ambivalent. You can’t believe it’s one way on Tuesday and another way on Wednesday. You have to take a position about something. You have to offer advice that’s clear, concise, works, and holds up, so you have to think it through.

As a result, the act of writing, like the act of teaching… the person that often gets the most out of it is the writer or teacher himself. I’ve learned more from writing books than I could have gotten any other way I can think of.

SSS: So how has the poker publishing world changed from before the poker boom to after?

LK: [With those pre-boom titles] there was some [degree] of the market crying for [them]. Unfortunately that’s not the case anymore. The market for poker books is pretty swamped. And during that same time [i.e., the mid-90s to today] the publishing industry at large has been undergoing incredible changes, shrinking and collapsing, etc. So you have that happening.

SSS: How about the very recent past — the last year or two. It seems as if in the industry there is less buzz now about books. I’m really just speaking of the last year, maybe two years…. There is so much more to compete with books today. If you’re a poker player and you want information, you can go online, you can go to the forums, you can go to training sites or forums… there are a lot more exciting ways to get that information than from books.

LK: There’s also that phenomenon of how publishers are a lot more risk averse than they used to be. It used to be that 10-15 years ago they would take chances on a book if they liked it, if it was literate, if it had something going for it, whereas now they are looking for pretty much sure things…. More and more publishers are looking for “me too” kinds of books, whatever the subject matter is. And the general thinking in the publishing industry is that poker, at least for right now, has pretty much played out as an interesting topic for a book….

[You could say] the publishing industry is hunkering down. They are getting very conservative about what they release, and they’re unwilling to take risks. They are only playing aces and kings. Whereas in the past they would take a flyer on a nine-eight suited.

SSS: Yeah, that’s right.

LK: You know what’s a very interesting phenomenon… when we talk about poker books being played out, we’re really talking about hold’em books being overdone. Nobody’s writing about the other forms of poker. In fact, Mark Tenner, who came in second in last year’s WSOP Omaha/8 event, he and I wrote a book called Winning Omaha/8 Poker in 2003. And we are in the process now of doing a second edition, adding a substantial amount of new material.

But in the seven years since this book has come out there’s not been another book written about Omaha. There have been a gazillion books written about hold’em, and Omaha at one time was called the game of the future. Yes, there’s been one or two PLO books written…

SSS: Yes, Jeff Hwang has written a couple of PLO books that I like a lot. [Note: Hwang's first Omaha book, Pot-Limit Omaha Poker, does contain a section devoted to Omaha/8.] There probably is an Omaha/8 book [written since 2003] somewhere, but you guys are pretty much alone on the shelf there.

LK: Yeah, and so we’re going to come out with a second edition. The publisher says he’s getting interest from some people who want a new one, so we’ll see what happens. But when we talk about the poker book business we’re really talking about the no-limit Texas hold’em book business.

Much thanks to Lou Krieger for taking the time. If you are interested in hearing the full interview — as well as Krieger asking me questions about my background and poker writing — you can download and listen to the archived episode of “Keep Flopping Aces” over on the Rounders Radio site. Also, for more information about Krieger, his blog, and his books (including ways to order), visit his website at LouKrieger.com.

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“Back to quits” is one of my favorite poker expressions, although I don’t think it is one that is all that commonly known or used. I don’t see it in The Official Dictionary Poker by Michael Weisenberg, accessible online over at Mike Caro’s site. Nor does it appear in The Poker Encyclopedia compiled by Ethan Allan and Hannah Mackay.

Can’t recall exactly where I first encountered it. I know Anthony Holden uses the phrase in Big Deal, which is why I think of it as probably more of a British term — like calling a player a “punter” or the pot the “pool.” Early in the book, Holden describes starting out his year-long experiment as a poker professional with some losses, followed by a couple of cashes in small tourneys and “a run of cards in a £5-and-£10 Hold ’Em side game, which got my bankroll back to quits.”

The meaning of the phrase is clear enough, I assume — getting back to even. I like the way the phrase connotes that irrational feeling we’ve all had that makes recovering one’s starting stack a requirement for leaving the game.

We know it’s wrong to think this way. “Perhaps the stupidest words in poker are ‘I’ve got to get even,” writes Al Schoonmaker in Your Worst Poker Enemy. “When you feel that way, you are in danger of turning an unpleasant loss into a catastrophe,” explains the psychologist. “You can get further off balance, play more poorly or perhaps go to a larger game or the craps table, desperately trying to get even.”

Thus do I like calling it getting “back to quits” rather than getting even, because the phrase tends to remind me that my real goal is simply to leave the game — which perhaps I should consider going ahead and doing rather than pressuring myself to recoup my losses. In other words, realizing that I’m simply trying to get “back to quits” sometimes helps me get up from the table sooner — not always easy to do. (Wrote about that a couple of times before, actually, in “Poker Sisyphean Challenge” and “The Long Goodbye”).

I sometimes marvel at how this mindfulness of how much I am up or down perfectly evokes the existentialist idea of “making meaning” — in this case, interpreting the meaning of my play according to what is necessarily a wholly subjective criterion that only really matters to me. In fact, depending on how aware my opponents are, sometimes I might be the only one who even knows if I’m up or down. And even if others are aware, they haven’t a true idea what the significance of being up or down (by a lot or a little) means to me, anyway.

It was during another session of Rush Poker (pot-limit Omaha, six-handed, $25 buy-in) that I found myself thinking about all of these things once again. Despite playing a few hands well early on, I’d taken a couple of unfortunate beats, then made a couple of missteps to take me nearly two buy-ins down. I gradually fought back, and without winning any large pots managed to get almost “back to quits” before signing off.

As those who have played Rush Poker know, with each new hand you are taken to a new table. After a while, you do start to see the same players, and it is even possible to get reads and use them (especially if you are a note-taker). But a lot of what happens in each individual hand happens without the usual contextual info of the standard game.

I realized absolutely no one knew whether I was up or down during my session. In fact, towards the end I was sitting with a fairly big stack (nearly three buy-ins deep), but was still down a couple of bucks. Nor did anyone know if I’d been playing well or poorly.

A hand came up where it folded to me on the button and I raised pot with a trash hand. As I did, I momentarily thought of my “image” and its significance (or lack thereof). My opponents didn’t really know if I was the sort of player who sometimes would raise with bad cards there. But I did.

As I waited for the blinds to act, I began involuntarily thinking about how I’d played the last couple of times it had folded to me on the button, actually considering — and maybe even being slightly affected by — the patterns in my own play. Patterns I had noticed, but no one else had.

The existentialist recognizes that while we play with each other, what the game means is necessarily going to be different to each of the players. And if for you getting to the end means returning to the beginning, well, only you may see the meaning of within.

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Opened up PokerStars yesterday for a brief session. While scanning the available tables I noticed one with a little yellow square before it indicating that I had taken a note on a player at that table. That’s a relatively new feature at Stars, I believe. Curious, I opened the table, saw the player, and read the note.

I’m not as diligent a note-taker as I should be. Nor am I necessarily always confident in the quality of my notes, either. A lot of times inspiration for the note comes from a single hand, and thus may or may not offer sound information about how the player plays, more generally speaking. Even worse, sometimes that hand involved me taking a bad beat, and the note is really just an outlet for my frustration, a slightly more constructive alternative to whimpering in the chat box.

When I took a look at my note for this particular player — I’ll call him Drifter23 — I realized that it was indeed partially an example of one of those dubious notes taken after I’d lost a hand. The note read “gambler; won big pot v. me after getting it in real bad; plays PLO50 mostly, six-tabling (PLO25-6).” That latter designation tells me where I had encountered him — at a $25 max. buy-in, six-handed pot-limit Omaha table. Which is where I was finding him now. With a seat open on his left.

Noting that he’d more than doubled up at this table (to about $55), I took the seat with a vague expectation that I might well be playing a big pot with Drifter23. A couple of orbits went by without much incident other than the two of us having battled for a couple of smallish pots in blind-vs.-blind hands.

Then came a hand in which Drifter23 minimum-raised to 50 cents from UTG+1, I folded a crap hand from the cutoff, then a player I’ll call RowdyRon, who had $26.45 to start the hand, reraised pot (to $1.85) from the button. The blinds folded, and Drifter23 made the call. The flop came . Drifter23 checked, and RowdyRon bet $2.50 — about half the pot. Drifter23 then check-raised pot to $11.35, and after thinking for a while RowdyRon finally folded, conceding the $8.65 pot to Drifter23.

An unremarkable hand, it seemed, until the chat started up:

Drifter23: i thought you were gonna take it all that time
RowdyRon: fk up nit
Drifter23: youre more of a nit than i am for sure
RowdyRon: go suck a ball sack
RowdyRon: and buy lotto

The chat revealed at least three things to me. For one, these two apparently had butted heads some before I got there, it seemed. Secondly, RowdyRon’s calling Drifter23 a “nit” didn’t seem to jibe with my note on the dude, while Drifter23’s denial perhaps did. (In fact, I’m going to guess from the action and subsequent chat that Drifter23 had flopped a draw there and was ready to play for stacks — not that “nit”-like, really.) And thirdly, RowdyRon was clearly a jerk.

The chirping continued, and it became clear that the pair’s conversation had indeed probably begun sometime earlier. It also revealed a few more things.

Drifter23: as i said, if lotto gave me these odds…
RowdyRon: thats why ur break even over 50k hands
RowdyRon: what a wste of life
Drifter23: for sure
Drifter23: quite terribad
RowdyRon: i recommend find a new hobby
RowdyRon: thats just incredible
Drifter23: cheers
Drifter23: i recommend stop breaking pstars rules btw =)

I thought I had a little bit of extra info on Drifter23 when I’d sat down at the table, having taken my note on him during that earlier session. But RowdyRon knew even more. He’d obviously taken a peek at Poker Table Ratings to discover more about his nemesis. I wrote about this site a couple of weeks ago, one which tracks all cash games and where one can look up any player’s number of hands played, net profit/loss, and BB/100 for all stakes/games. One can even do some cursory analysis regarding their looseness/aggression, replay hands or sessions, among a few other investigations.

Drifter23’s reference there to PokerStars’ rules alludes to the fact that the site forbids players from accessing Poker Table Ratings for such information. In fact, the way Stars’ rules are written, one isn’t to look at PTR while playing (something Stars can, theoretically, check for), nor even while away from the tables, although there’s no way Stars can enforce that prohibition.

Unless, of course, someone pipes up in the chat box to volunteer that he’s accessed such info.

RowdyRon: now u angry hey
RowdyRon: i hit a nerve?
Drifter23: my observations tell me that only one of us are crying
RowdyRon: or learn to play
RowdyRon: youll be better off either way
Drifter23: thanks =)

As play continued, I thought about my little note on Drifter23. Hadn’t really attached that much value to it in the first place, but now I realized how easy it was to discover much, much more about him if I so desired. I also was now playing with an awareness that RowdyRon may well be checking my stats to see if I were a winning player, if I were a “nit,” and so forth.

In that post from a couple of weeks ago, I expressed a bit of bother about being tracked so closely (and not having the ability to opt out of the tracking). Having thought about it some more, I guess I’m less worried about it, although I still feel like my opponents’ knowledge of me ideally should be limited to hands they’ve played against me. And I remain cynical about sites having rules they can’t really enforce.

Kind of appreciated Drifter23’s reference to what his “observations” were telling him there, which I took as a cheeky allusion (intended or not) to RowdyRon’s having supplemented his observations with extra data.

I liked Drifter23’s apparent attitude as well. Can’t do much about folks investigating you like this. Nor about folks giving you hell in the chat box. Saying “cheers” and “thanks” and typing smiley faces seems as appropriate a response as any, I guess.

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For those who might have missed it, check out the comments to yesterday’s post in which I talked about that forthcoming article by Kyle Siler on the “Social and Psychological Challenges of Poker” in the Journal of Gambling Studies. In the comments you’ll see Kevmath pointing us to that Time magazine piece that also discusses the study. And Andy Bloch — who I’m gonna go ahead and suggest is probably better equipped to judge these things than I am — came by to offer some thoughts as well.

One of the ideas that comes up near the end of Siler’s piece has to do with the special psychological pressures that arise when a player moves up in stakes. All of us who have played the game know about these pressures. Any sort of change from one’s “normal” game — be it a change in stakes or an attempt to try a different game — usually brings with it some measure of uncertainty, and some of us are better equipped than others to handle those differences (e.g., in opponents’ skill levels, in opponents’ strategies, in the hands/odds/play of other games, etc.).

In fact, this phenomenon — basically of finding it difficult to perform well when outside of one’s comfort zone — occurred to me more than once yesterday.

Was thinking about it last night while watching my UNC Tarheels get blasted by the Clemson Tigers in a game at Clemson. The Heels looked miserable from the start, turning the ball over every other possession and falling behind by 20 within the first nine minutes. UNC finally got it together midway through the first half and managed to play the Tigers evenly for the rest of the night, which meant they ended the game on the losing side of a 83-64 final.

Carolina has a few seniors, but those guys don’t have a ton of experience, and much of the roster is filled out by freshmen and sophomores. While they are undefeated at home (11-0), they are now only 1-4 when not playing in the Dean Dome. Clearly having to leave Chapel Hill and get out of their comfort zone has negatively affected the young team thus far, as that poor start last night well showed.

Earlier in the day I’d been thinking about the same idea while reading Jay Greenspan’s book Hunting Fish (2006), loaned to me a little while ago by Special K. I’ve only just started the book, which, as the subtitle announces, is a chronicle of Greenspan’s “cross-country search for America’s worst poker players.” The book is organized into 18 chapters, each of which focuses on a particular stop on Greenspan’s journey through various casinos, underground clubs, and home games. So far so good.

Greenspan has to deal with a couple of different varieties of uncertainty as he travels from game to game. For one, his goal is to build his bankroll and move up in stakes, and already at the beginning of the book he’s starting to express self-doubt about whether or not he’ll eventually discover he cannot psychologically handle the pressure of moving up. “I understood that for me there would be a limit,” he writes, “a level at which I would say, I simply can’t play this high. The stakes are too much for me.”

Of course, Greenspan also has to deal with the uncertainty of playing in unfamiliar environs with unfamiliar opponents. Like UNC last night, he’s going to be the away team every single night, and so will have to get accustomed to dealing with unknowns and adapting accordingly.

There was one other instance yesterday when this phenomenon occurred to me — when I sat down for a short online session of my usual pot-limit Omaha game. When away from the tables, I almost always think about playing a different game. And sometimes I think about playing at higher stakes than the usual $25 buy-in games where I am most comfortable. But somehow, after I’ve logged in and opened up the lobby to find a game, I always go back to what’s familiar.

I know playing other games or higher stakes will challenge me as a player, thereby helping me to improve. But I also know that by sticking with my usual game/stakes my familiarity there serves me well, too, as my experience tends to give me an edge — sometimes modest, sometimes significant — over my opponents. I don’t always win, but I usually know what the hell is going on. Thus do I minimize (somewhat) the “social and psychological challenges” game provides.

Challenges are necessary, though. And paradoxical. We desire them, but shun them, too. We fear uncertainty, and perhaps a lot of times even consciously avoid situations in which we are confronted by uncertainty. But we know that a life without uncertainty isn’t desirable either.

Of that I’m certain.

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Team CardRunners member and instructor Eric Liu quickly became one of the most respected No-Limit Hold’em players around after turning a $200 deposit into an impressive $34,000 bankroll in just a few months.

Eric’s interest in poker developed after watching a poker tournament on TV and decided to try out his poker skills firsthand. He jumped up the ranks in a very short time playing in the biggest No-Limit Cash games online and more recently playing in live poker tournaments. His biggest win to date came in 2008 when he finished in-the-money at an EPT event in January of that year.

When not at the poker tables, Eric spends his time studying at Duke University, where he is finishing up his senior year. Additionally, Eric devotes a great deal of his time doing volunteer work, traveling and spending time with friends.

Look for Eric online playing at Full Tilt Poker’s high-stakes No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha tables.

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Read more about Eric’s accomplishments at Full Tilt Poker

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