19 Mar 10

"This is the new theory" - Interview with Byran Jacobs and kobeyard

When a book author and a prominent FL video producer meet, it can result in prolific collaboration. Find out how Byron Jacobs and kobeyard ended up writing a Fixed Limit article together.

When Byron Jacobs, author of "How good is your Limit Hold'em", and kobeyard, one of PokerStrategy.com's most well known coaches and video producers, first faced each other on PartyPoker, they were unaware of who they were up against. After discussing Fixed Limit theory they both decided to write a FL article that will soon be released on PokerStrategy.com

In our interview you will find out whether Byron Jacobs and kobeyard are planning more projects together, how they view the future of Fixed Limit and much more.

Interview Byron Jacobs

PokerStrategy.com:  Byron, how did you meet Robert?

ByronJacobs: About a year ago I had an open HU limit table at Party and this guy sat down to play. During heads-up play it doesn't take long (maybe 10-15 hands) until you have figured out whether your opponent is any good. I quickly realised that this guy played better than just OK. When this happens, I like to play a few more hands just to see if there are any obvious leaks in his game. If there aren’t any, I'll usually go on "sit out".

We played a few more hands and I realised that this guy was very strong. He had a habit of putting me under pressure exactly when I had a marginal hand. I didn't feel comfortable at all because I couldn't find any weaknesses in his game. I went on sit out and said something like: "You play pretty well" and then we started chatting about HU play in general.

This was unusual because most guys just say "OK" and then leave the table, but Robert seemed happy to have a little chat, which I found pleasant. I remember him arguing that you should defend 64o in the Big Blind which I disagreed with. We had a discussion about it and it was immediately obvious that he thinks deeply about the game. There was one hand in the session that I remember particularly well.

I had AT in the Big Blind. Robert raises me and I call. The flop was Axx with two diamonds. Robert places his continuation bet and I raise him. He re-raises me very quickly. I decided to call the raise and check-raise the turn. The turn was a blank so I checked and was disappointed to see that he checked behind. The river was a blank again so I bet and he raises. This made no sense to me until I realised that the river was a third diamond so I put him on the "obvious" flush (after his free card play on the turn).

I thought about it for a second and folded my aces because my aces "couldn't possibly" be the best hand any more. I did have a strong hand but given the way the hand panned out, he must have had two pair or a flush; otherwise his play would have made no sense. Despite my strong hand it was a definite fold for me. After the session I said in the chat: "You were pretty aggressive. Did you just run well or did you bluff a lot?"

His response was: "I did run pretty well. I only bluffed the one hand on the Axx flop."

I still didn't get it so I asked why he re-raised the flop without a strong hand. I asked because the board wasn't very draw heavy except for the two diamonds.

He replied: "I knew your hand was weak."

That was OK but I still didn't understand why he raised the river. He told me that he thought I was a good enough player to fold if a diamond comes on the river. I was very impressed because he was able to judge me as a player after only a small number of hands. It is very difficult to play such a move profitably. You have to be very good at judging your opponent. It is even difficult with a history of 200 hands, but the way he did it, from nothing, was very impressive. We exchanged Skype nicknames and decided to chat some more.

"This is the new theory"

PokerStrategy.com: And how did you come up with the idea of writing a FL article?

ByronJacobs:  I publish a lot of books, mainly about chess, but we do quite a lot of poker books too (dandbpublishing.com). I am always looking for authors to write new books. I asked Robert if he had ever thought of writing a book and he was immediately interested, but wasn't sure he would be able to. So I decided that we could have a discussion about it and that I would write it up. I was quite experienced because I had already written many books (around 15), articles and other texts. Robert then introduced me to PokerStrategy.com, which I knew nothing about, and he suggested that I should write some articles for you.

The "check behind" concept is interesting, because it NEVER gets used this way. When Robert mentioned it I didn't get it at first, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made. I started to use it quite a lot in my HU play and I was successful with it. We exchanged ideas and I wrote them up...

It's really nice to do this, because it feels like the next development in the theory of limit play. All the stuff from Sklansky, Malmuth etc. is out of date now. This right here is the new theory.

PokerStrategy.com: How did the collaboration go? Were there any conflicts, how did you share the workload?

ByronJacobs: It went very well. We had discussions on Skype. I made notes and wrote them up later on. I would then send the up-to-date version of the article to Robert and we would continue to discuss and refine it. At first we had many ideas (well, they were mostly Robert's ideas), but the text lacked structure. I am quite good at structuring articles.

I also constantly added examples which we then discussed. I don't recall any conflicts - I think we get on very well. There are some slight differences... mainly because Robert plays much higher stakes than me. At my level (mid-stakes to low end of the high stakes) certain plays are usually +EV, but at the much higher levels these plays aren't successful. Therefore we sometimes had a small difference of opinion, but it probably had more to do with the different levels we play at.

PokerStrategy.com:  How long did it take to write the article?

ByronJacobs: Quite a long time. Maybe a couple of months, but it was done in bursts because we were both busy with other stuff too. It wasn’t always easy to coordinate. I guess we had maybe 5 x 1 hour phone discussions.

kobeyard: Much more… around 15!

ByronJacobs: Really?

kobeyard: Yeah, definitely.

PokerStrategy.com:  So there were never any disagreements?

ByronJacobs: I don't remember any... certainly nothing serious, but if it makes the story any better, we can say we had a big fight and wanted to kill each other; even though this isn't true.

kobeyard: (laughs) We had slight disagreements on the importance of certain ideas, but since we’re both sensible human beings (I hope), we almost always understood the reasoning behind certain concepts and thus usually agreed with each other in the end. I also have to say I can be quite convincing.

"Fixed Limit is not the easiest method"

PokerStrategy.com: What do you think about the future of FL Hold'em?

ByronJacobs: Good question. I am not sure. I think players have got MUCH better than they were 2-3 years ago. I don't play the other games so I am not sure whether the same applies for them. I suspect that if you really put your mind to it, you can develop a strategy which is close to unexploitable, but it won’t be the best way to make money.

It's easier to earn money playing No Limit. Fixed Limit is not the easiest method.

You can reach a reasonable standard with Fixed Limit quite quickly but it is very hard and takes a lot of experience to really excel. You have to understand that betting is a language in it's own right. However, it isn't what you initially think from a purely mathematical perspective.

I really enjoy it because it is a very "pure" game to me. Others might find it boring compared to PLO or to tournaments, but I enjoy the direct confrontation.

PokerStrategy.com: So to come back to my question… does it have a future? I mean when you say that it requires a lot of experience, will players gain this experience?

ByronJacobs: Yes, it definitely has a future, no doubt about it. You only need to look at the tables and their variance. Fish survive longer in Fixed Limit than they do in No Limit. The edge is smaller and weak players lose their money more slowly.

PokerStrategy.com:  Are you working on further joint projects?

ByronJacobs: Yes, for sure. We will discuss other topics and if PokerStrategy.com would like some articles about these topics, we will write them up.

kobeyard: We are also planning to write a book about Fixed Limit heads up. We could publish some extracts on PokerStrategy.com

PokerStrategy.com:  How did you end up writing a book about poker?

ByronJacobs: I started a publishing company in 2002/03. We were doing a lot of games such as bridge, puzzles, gambling etc. and we thought we had to do poker because it was taking off online. I find the game very interesting and I tried to play, but at the beginning I was pretty bad and kept losing with no literature to help me. Well, there was maybe one really good book, but really not that much.

We wanted to write some poker books and I knew someone from my chess contacts who was a big live poker player, although he only played PLO and NL. He agreed to write two books for us on those games and we also had a general book on internet poker, but we didn't have a Limit book and we really needed one. I couldn't find an author to do it and so eventually I thought: “What the hell, I'll write it myself.”

I wasn't keen to do it at first because I wasn't sure whether I was good enough or whether I had the time. However, most other poker books at the time were awful. They had some useful concepts but no structure or overall message.

PokerStrategy.com: What was going to be special about your book?

ByronJacobs: I found other books very disappointing being a professional publisher myself. I was sure I was able to do better, but wasn't so certain of my poker skills. So I thought I could study those books to understand the concepts. As I said, the concepts were there but they were hard to understand because of the lack of structure.

In the end I wrote the book without paying much attention to what other players might think of it, and most of them rather like it.

PokerStrategy.com: Do you have any future plans to write another book about poker? Clearly the first one is popular.

ByronJacobs: Yes, I’m always thinking about new books. I might write one jointly with Robert because we work well together. I also plan to write a book which explains how a professional player goes about the business of being a successful player. Many people really don't have much idea of how to succeed as a player. They might play really well but that's not enough. Chess grandmaster Seigbert Tarrasch said: "It is not enough to be a good player, you have to also play well." This applies to poker too, so I am planning to write a book on this subject. I’ve already written one third of it.

PokerStrategy.com: We look forward to your future projects, thanks a lot for the interview!