ABA's CLAIM

[jordiepop]

hoh vol 1, nltap, top, LGB, pl&nl poker. i guess he missed all of these titles. w/o these books i would be lost.

[larrondo]

The only ones you haven't read? Well then you have missed the very best ones for NL. Without a doubt.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

[ QUOTE ]
aba 20 says there are no good no-limit books out there for cash games.

[/ QUOTE ]

Has he elucidated on this? Does he say what flaws current books have? Does he say if it is impossible to write a truly good no limit book, or does he just say that current literature falls short without explanation of how and why?

[Ibanez8185]

What I think Brian is trying to say is that there is no one poker book you can read that will make up for experience. You can read all the poker books in the world yet it will not make up for playing 600-700k hands of good poker. Books are a good starting point but you cant rely on them to much.

[Gelford]

Grunch


Did only make it halfway thru the replies, but all of you saying differently ... errr .. .there are no good NL hold'em ringgame books.

Even NLTAP is fairly mediocre


And don't defend the books by saying they are intended for a noob audience and so therefore can't be expected to contain advanced material.


Hopefully PLN will improve on this.

[Matt Flynn]

Gotta go with Brian's view. I think there's good stuff in some books, especially Ciaffone and NLHTAP, but no-limit is a people game, and there is no substitute for hand reading skills, experience, and having your mistakes beat into you over tens of thousands of hands online.

There's also an ENORMOUS amount of material that deals with the math and how to adjust that is not yet in print. Sunny and I have a table of contents that would easily fill half a dozen books, and we haven't gotten serious about fleshing it out yet. So I understand any strong player's frustration with the literature. If you can think precisely, you can come up with 40 or 50 concepts and write a book. Not hard at all right now, which is probably why 50 people are coming out with books.

Sunny, Ed and I will cover some of that ground with the two PNL books. In volume 1 we present the fundamentals, how to frame no-limit decisions and work through them (REM), and great detail on how to manipulate implied odds in your favor (Planning Hands Around Commitment). It's conceptually easy and a little harder in practice, but it makes enough preflop decisions easy (and allows you to avoid many nasty stack decisions) that we felt we had to cover it in detail and with dozens of hand examples.

For example, you have 77 in middle position after one limper in a game with 100BB stacks. What do you do? Many raise to 3.5 or 4BB there, which is often terrible if you don't steal frequently when you miss. For many players it is a 0.5-1BB error, a nightmare for your earn rate. After reading PNL volume 1, you should be able to size up your game and opponents - whether loose, tight, aggro, or whatever - and know if that raise size is reasonable or as much as a 1.5BB mistake.

We went for maximum help to small-stakes and mid stakes pros in volume 1, but don't think these errors aren't made often in 10-20 games. In general, the first half of the book is easier and the second half advanced, but I doubt Brian would learn much from any book. He already knows it.

Matt

[7n7]

In complete agreement with Matt.

My point was just that I believe it's a bit tougher for an expert, high-stakes NL player to review current poker literature.

I certainly don't think that NLHTAP or Ciaffone are complete works by any means but to say that they aren't any good is a bit strong. I definitely took wisdom out of both. I also recognize that someone of Brian's caliber wouldn't though. I further realize that he'd be in disagreement with some advice currently written and agree with others.

Now, if Brian had said that the current NL poker literature is lacking, incomplete, certain advice could be incorrect, etc., etc., I'd agree w/o question.

[Grunch]

[ QUOTE ]
For example, you have 77 in middle position after one limper in a game with 100BB stacks. What do you do? Many raise to 3.5 or 4BB there, which is often terrible if you don't steal frequently when you miss. For many players it is a 0.5-1BB error, a nightmare for your earn rate. After reading PNL volume 1, you should be able to size up your game and opponents - whether loose, tight, aggro, or whatever - and know if that raise size is reasonable or as much as a 1.5BB mistake.

[/ QUOTE ]

Damnit, Matt! You always say something interesting like this, and then leave me hanging! I'm dyin' here!

[Hallett]

[ QUOTE ]
hoh vol 1, nltap, top, LGB, pl&nl poker. i guess he missed all of these titles. w/o these books i would be lost.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe the quote of his that states there are no good books was quite a while back.

[facepull]

what about raising with the sevens to function as as a pot builder in case you hit your set? when playing 1-2 no-limit stealing blinds is not really the goal.