[Nolitor]

I got mine last week from Amazon. It's edited and written in parts by the guy that wrote the book about Andy Beal versus Phil Ivey et al (Michael Craig, attorney/author/successful tournament player) and it's refreshing in that he (Craig) aims it to be a comprehensive work that can stand out there on its own and not be an embarrassment to the people associated with it (authors are Andy Bloch [Pre-Flop Play], Richard Brodie [Strategy Modification], Chris Ferguson [Post Flop], Ted Forrest [Style Changes and Gear Switching, 7-Stud, Razz], Rafe Furst [Roshambo's Lessons for Poker], Phil Gordon [Small Stack Survival], David Grey [7-Stud Strategy], Howard Lederer [No-Limit Leveraging and Limit Hold 'Em Theory], Mike Matusow [Omaha 8], Huck Seed [Razz], Keith Sexton [7-Stud Starters] and Gavin Smith [Big Stack Bullying]) and not an infomercial for these poker celebrities' sponsoring site. It actually credits and talks more about Sklansky, Malmuth and 2+2 and their past, current and likely future contributions and value to the reader-player than anything else. This looks like the book SuperSystem2 should have been (and Craig was doubtless aware of that): solid content for games that are actually played (HORSE versus Triple Draw); no endless hyping of the Full Tilt site (for the record, I don't play there: [1] I don't like their cartoonish aesthetics and [2] I don't like what I see on these forums re unanswered questions about their purported failure to ensure the integrity of their games by instituting better policing); and, no endless reminders about how fortunate we are to be receiving the actual words (as actually written) of actual living legends and their acolytes.

As to the level of the content, I'm up to page 76 of the book's 438 pages and I'm surprised by how much useful new stuff is packed in here and I'm also a little annoyed that some of the stuff I used, thought was original with me and not generally known is laid out here for everybody else to see (elements of Howard's leveraging chapter). Craig seems to have kept his eye on what's important and kept out any hint of fluff, poker site promotion and self-agggrandizing b.s.

In short: Good job, Mr. Craig!