[mshalen]

I have been reading this thread since the begining but wouldn't chirp in until I read the book. I originally pre-ordered through Amazon but when they emailed me that the book would not be shipped until late August I canceled my order and ordered from Mike at Professional. The book arrived quickly and Mike now has a new regular customer.

Reading this book has cleared up a number of issues that I have had concerning NL. Many times I would be observing the action at a table and after the hand was completed I reviewed the action and couldn't figure out why the people played their hands the way they did. I just wrote some players off as fish/morons, but it appears that some were using some form of SPR analysis.

I now am starting to understand Reuben and Ciaffone. I read their books (a few times through) many years ago and couldn't grasp the concepts or why people talked about how great their books were for big stack poker. Now I am starting to get it.

I agree with phydaux's post above where he mentions MTTs. I too have started thinking that the strategies have many applications in MTTs and will spend some time working out some scenarios.

Overall the book is very good. The concepts are explained in an easy to read/understand manner. The one confusing part is that in many places a concept is introduced in not much depth and then we are told that this will be revisted on page x. If this occured once or twice then it would be fine but it appears at numerous places throughout the book. The above posts that are the most off base seem to be written by people who have not read the book or take a sentence out of context and twist the meaning.

Overall the book gets a solid A and I am looking forward to Vol.2. Thanks for writting this book, I feel that this book will make a significant impact on my playing ability (and bankroll).