Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

Preflop re-raising range would be nice.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Matt,
Can you get to playing out of the blinds? Can you talk about live play as well, especially those 50BB max buy-in games?
RB

[/ QUOTE ]

Blinds yes. Live play absolutely - although those 50BB games are a crime against humanity. I can't think of a worse game I've played in than the Bellagio $2-5 $200 buyin. Talk about simple strategy.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

I think I am giving up too much on TPTK out of position. What do you do with these hands in the face of some aggression?

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Sunny,

Really looking forward to this. One thing that would be really great is some advice on calculating odds at the table when you're putting an opponent on a range of hands. Any quick formulas or tricks to do it in your head.

For instance, you're considering calling an all-in with TPTK and a FD on the turn. You think opponent has a set (50%) two pair (30%) or worse draw (20%).

I'd also love to see some treatment of how to play with stack sizes of various multiples of the pot - semibluffing, fold equity, strategies for getting it in, etc.

Thanks
NT

[/ QUOTE ]

Tricky to do because ranges are so variable. We might come up with a few shortcuts.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think I am giving up too much on TPTK out of position. What do you do with these hands in the face of some aggression?

[/ QUOTE ]

Check them early and often if they're giving you that much trouble. Sometimes you just have to lay them down. However, you may have a problem with commitment and may be setting yourself up preflop for a fall postflop.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Matt,
Can you get to playing out of the blinds? Can you talk about live play as well, especially those 50BB max buy-in games?
RB

[/ QUOTE ]

Blinds yes. Live play absolutely - although those 50BB games are a crime against humanity. I can't think of a worse game I've played in than the Bellagio $2-5 $200 buyin. Talk about simple strategy.

[/ QUOTE ]

In some places outside Vegas -- like in Chicago where I live -- the only live games available are short stacked. Grrrrr, I hate those games.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Matt & Sunny, have you considered making a two (or more) volume book like HOH? There is so much info you can put in it that it seems like one 300+ pages-book is not enough.

[/ QUOTE ]

We are considering that, but we have not spoken to Mason about it.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

Great, because I play like a nit out of the blinds. As for the 50BB games, the problem is most people here are internet players and when they play live for the first time, those are the games they tend to play in. That's how it is at the casinos that I play in (never been to Vegas, don't know how it is there).
Also, I'm going to need my book to be signed by the authors with the the caption:
"To the greatest poker player we know, Russian Bear. If it wasn't for you we wouldn't be the players we are today and definitely would not have been able to write this book."
For modesty's sake that doesn't need to be in the acknowledgments, just my copy. Thank you gentlemen.
RB

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

Here's an idea that I think would be worth exploring, but I'm not sure whether or not it would work:

Once you get past the very basics, you find that there are a bunch of common situations that are just hard to handle, and all you can say in general is "it depends."

Example: You have AK, raise PF, get one call. You bet 3/4 pot on a K-high flop in position, and get check-raised. What's your plan?

Obviously this is too general a question as it's very situation dependent, and if you really understood it you'd be very good at poker.

So I think it would be useful to have say 10 example hands which all begin with the situation described above. Some of them could have dry flops, other drawy ones, and be against various different types of opponents. Then good lines could be suggested for each possible case. I think a study of this sort of thing could be really useful -- it would show readers what types of things these decisions depend on, in a practical context.

You could do that for a few common tough situations (TPTK in position against flop c/r, overpair out of position, etc.)

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

wow, really good suggestions so far, guys......keep'em coming!....

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

Hopefully this has not been mentioned yet but a topic I would really like to hear about is changes in game from 6-max to FR, and live play to online play. I currently play 6-max online but would like to also play some real life FR ( since there is no 6-max) and some guidlines and strategy that you may do in one but not in another would be nice.Great to see you guys really reaching out to readers and what we want.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

How to quickly identify different opponent types and what adjusts to your game are needed based on this. Also, a discussion on when/how to shift gears.

Oh yeah, I'll throw in SSNL shania.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

Agree with much of what's already been named above, especially hand reading, sizing bets, and blinds play...

A few other issues I commonly struggled with in small stakes NL games:

- Strategies (both pre-flop and post-flop) for playing against LAGs/Maniacs

- Playing suited connectors and medium/small pairs from middle and late position (both pre-flop an post-flop)...

- Strategies for shifting gears -- how/when to loosen or tighten up at a table effectively

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

1 more: moving up. What sort of thing you need to add to your game to progress out of SSNL

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

The things I suck at:
- hand reading: putting opponent on a range
- dealing with aggressive shorties
- responding to 'donk' moves like min c/r on flop, minraise in position, minbets OOP

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

I would also like to see thoughts about when you should fire multiple bullets out of position against opponents who seem to float the flop wayyy too often, and seem to bet 100% of the time when you check the turn.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Shorthanded play.
Min-raising.
Dealing with shorties.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd love to see an extensive amount written about these three things as well. Also, I found that Theory & Practice didn't focus enough on extracting money from fish and had too many examples with weird stack sizes. I'd rather read about average situations where almost everyone has roughly 100bb.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

The most interesting thing I've read lately is Doubleas blog on developing pressure points in hands. Be the one to apply pressure, and apply it as early as possible in the hand. It definitely gives me something to think about while playing. I think this could definitely be expanded upon and be a useful part of your book.

http://doubleas.blogspot.com/2005_05...12157952476050

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

1) Poker Tracker and Poker Ace Heads up display. You can make a deal with the makers of those two and bundle them on a CD with the book (or a least a link to the free download of the trial versions). Make a chapter on set up, auto-rating rules, and winning styles of play. TAG with the green bag of money is OK. LAG can be ok, but there are down sides - a lot of them. Rocks can make money. Etc. In fact, given a 100K sample size of hands played by winning players with various styles, you could spend a chapter looking at each player's statistics, hand histories, and show "hand reading" examples at how different styles of winning players approach different scenarios - and quantifiably show how at the end of 100K hands that style was +BB/100 hands. There is a real opportunity to focus on on-line play with tools impossible for live-players to use. On the other hand, the concepts learned from such an excercise, including the hand reading examples, would be applicable "live" once you are able to get a read on your opponents as rocks, or LAGs or whatever.

BTW, you could also bundle a 2+2 style hand converter for hand histories with instructions on how to use it and how to make good posts to these forums.

2) Stack sizes and position.

Effective stack size changes everything because of implied odds, or the lack of implied odds. This is the cash game equivalent of HoH's "M" for tournaments. I'd like to see a good approach to changing basic strategies regarding position (especially), raise frequency, looseness/tightness, etc. that correllates to stack depth - especially if some of the players are relatively short-stacked, and others are deep-stacked. For example, folding decent hands preflop due to a lack of implied odd, etc.

3) Others mentioned it, but hand reading examples. For example, floating an obvious continuation bet with 2nd pair or an under pair vs a semi-loose preflop player who ALWAYS continuation bets, but tends to check/fold the turn when he's missed. Or, how to play for a scare card in position. Or, making a big call because villain's play prior to a river push just doesn't add up.


4) It would be great if you could come up with a cash game equivalent to "M" and "Q." They should be simple concepts - like relative stack ratio ("S"), BB:Buy-in ("B"), table $VPIP avg ("V"), etc. - that players can calculate to quickly guage a situation in which to start puting a story together with villain's style of play in order to put him on a range of hands. You could set up hand reading examples like HoH, but with the S, B, V #s, and a "style" for villains including your own "style" in the eyes of players in the hand with you. HoH's hand reading examples are excellent. We need a cash game equivalent.

5) 6-max. What's different, what's the same, and why. In fact, a short-handed cash game book might be interesting. "Short-handed No-Limit Hold'em for Experts" for games of 6 players or less, especially heads up. It could cover tournaments as well as cash games.

6) Pot control with top pair and overpairs on the flop.

7) Setting up a computer system for multi-tabling. I can do 3 or 4 on my one small screen, but others here have set up 8 or more on mulitple screens. A section on the pros, cons, and detailed set up of effective poker workstations - multi-screen for multiple tables, how many tables is too many tables, ergonomics, etc.

8) Maximizing value. How to play a big hand with and without draws on the board. Check-raising vs leading out with a set in and out of position either as the preflop raiser or as a preflop caller. Playing OESFDs and Top pair + nut flush draw, etc. vs preflop raiser. When to value bet at the end, vs when to check/call to induce a final bluff. Etc.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

When to c-bet against multiple opponents.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

My biggest problem is putting people on a range in short handed nl.

Conventional book wisdom assumes the opponent is semi-competent and won't call you down with an underpair or raise with mid pair for value.

I'm coming over from full ring, where TPGK is not a monster and you're basically looking for a showdown, whereas short handed it seems like I'm leaving a ton of value playing this way.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
1) Poker Tracker and Poker Ace Heads up display. You can make a deal with the makers of those two and bundle them on a CD with the book (or a least a link to the free download of the trial versions). Make a chapter on set up, auto-rating rules, and winning styles of play. TAG with the green bag of money is OK. LAG can be ok, but there are down sides - a lot of them. Rocks can make money. Etc. In fact, given a 100K sample size of hands played by winning players with various styles, you could spend a chapter looking at each player's statistics, hand histories, and show "hand reading" examples at how different styles of winning players approach different scenarios - and quantifiably show how at the end of 100K hands that style was +BB/100 hands. There is a real opportunity to focus on on-line play with tools impossible for live-players to use. On the other hand, the concepts learned from such an excercise, including the hand reading examples, would be applicable "live" once you are able to get a read on your opponents as rocks, or LAGs or whatever.

BTW, you could also bundle a 2+2 style hand converter for hand histories with instructions on how to use it and how to make good posts to these forums.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't like this one. I don't want to ses donks using PT. And besides, who said that it's going to be a book about online poker?

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

I dont like it either. I don't like the iidea of seeing the book spend any time on software or other issues that aren't poker related. Those pages could tell me what to do on thje flopped trips hand instead. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

I play almost exclusively 6-max, as do a lot of folks on this forum. Any chance that 6-max could be the focus, rather than an addendum?

Also, obvious things like:

- hand reading (with *LOTS* of examples .. maybe quizes)
- understanding commitment
- careful notes about "this works well at SSNL but sucks at HSNL and here's why" and vice versa
- detailed explaination of shifting gears (how much, for how long, with examples)
- practical techniques for minimizing tilt

etc.

I love yad's idea about "it depends" situations.

There are lots of EV calcs that can only be done away from the tables. Examples of these that explain how to calculate various things, and what sorts of things are worth calculating, would be nice.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

coltrane,

What games do you play?

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
wow, really good suggestions so far, guys......keep'em coming!....

[/ QUOTE ]
In return, can we get the authors to commit now to looking in on and commenting on the post-publishing review sessions that take place on this board?...it will at least ensure that everyone here buys it

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

These responses are excellent. Keep 'em coming....

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
wow, really good suggestions so far, guys......keep'em coming!....

[/ QUOTE ]
In return, can we get the authors to commit now to looking in on and commenting on the post-publishing review sessions that take place on this board?...it will at least ensure that everyone here buys it

[/ QUOTE ]

Be glad to!

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

shorthanded play

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

I guess what I'm driving at is that a statement like,

".10/.50 NL $50 max, Villain UTG ($55.25) is 12/3/8.0 over 850 hands, Hero on Button ($35.45) has TAG image at table, about 20/12/5 for 4 orbits..."

contains HUGE amounts of information in the least possible amount of space. It's short-hand that only makes sense in the context of PT-stats. Plus, SSNL really isn't profitable anywhere but on-line. Try playing 100K hands of .1/.25 NL at a brick and mortar casino this year and see what I'm talking about. SSNL is really just for home games to have fun, and on-line to make money. So, why hide PT and HUD? You can certainly do well without that kind of tool - but you'd do better if (1) you had it, and (2) you know how to use it.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

Hey,

I would love to see loads of stuff about heads-up pots. More specifically :
-playing from blinds (against mp raiser, against a steal ; preflop and on typical flops).
-playing medium strength hands OOP
-cont betting
-floating
-inducing bluffs on turn and river
-delayed bluffing
-value betting marginal hands
-bluff raising on flop/turn
-adjusting to common types of opponents (calling stations, nits etc)

I would really love to see you talking about heads up pots much more than abotu multiway pots because this topic is really what no-limit is about in my humble opinion.

Best wishes [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I dont like it either. I don't like the iidea of seeing the book spend any time on software or other issues that aren't poker related. Those pages could tell me what to do on thje flopped trips hand instead. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

How the F is PT/PAHUD not poker related?

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here's an idea that I think would be worth exploring, but I'm not sure whether or not it would work:

Once you get past the very basics, you find that there are a bunch of common situations that are just hard to handle, and all you can say in general is "it depends."

Example: You have AK, raise PF, get one call. You bet 3/4 pot on a K-high flop in position, and get check-raised. What's your plan?

Obviously this is too general a question as it's very situation dependent, and if you really understood it you'd be very good at poker.

So I think it would be useful to have say 10 example hands which all begin with the situation described above. Some of them could have dry flops, other drawy ones, and be against various different types of opponents. Then good lines could be suggested for each possible case. I think a study of this sort of thing could be really useful -- it would show readers what types of things these decisions depend on, in a practical context.

You could do that for a few common tough situations (TPTK in position against flop c/r, overpair out of position, etc.)

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a brilliant idea, Yad. Just to add to your suggestion, include the math involved to help the readers make a decision based on the type of opponent they are playing against and what they believe the opponent has (i.e. "you know your opponent will only check raise when they are holding xx-yy")

We should start something like that here.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
coltrane,

What games do you play?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've pretty much run the gamut on stakes and types of NL games.....several years ago when I was learning poker, I started by playing NL (I never played Limit) online - from $25 PP to $200 PP - and then I really learned the ropes by playing in a $.50/$1 NL uncapped home game......it was a great experience to have a regular game to experiment with different things in.....the players were service industry types with cash to throw around and they LOVED to gamble.....stacks would get deep (sometimes more than 500bb's) and I was really lucky to be able to learn in a game with stacks that deep for small stakes.....

for the past two years I've made my living playing NL Hold'em.....prior to Hurricane Katrina, my regular game was an uncapped 5/5 NL game at Harrah's New Orleans.....after the storm, I lived in Vegas for 5 months and played regularly in the Wynn uncapped 5/10 and 2/5 games and in the Bellagio 10/20 and Commerce 10/20 games.....after moving back to New Orleans (and prior to starting on the book), I was playing mostly 10/25 live shorthanded and full-ring games......

in the past 9 months I've also really gotten into online NL.....I've often used online NL as a way of experimentation with different ideas and strategies.....I think it's fun in a different kind of way.....since the start of writing the book, I've been playing in many various games (some for fun, some for research) online from 1/2NL to 10/20NL - full ring, a lot of 6-max, and shorthanded all the way down to heads-up......I also have a couple students that I've been coaching and using as guinea pigs for research, and they play in online and live games from $.10/.25 to $1/2 and I monitor them......

I also like blondes, long walks on the beach, ..... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

Thinking about this a bit more and after finishing NLHEFP I think more details on how to deal with a medium stack would help. Virtually everything you read is for big stacks or small stacks; in position or the blinds. Heads up or first into the pot. They are always idealistic situations and at low limits not really what I come up against day in, day out. How do I deal with AQs when I raise from MP and get called by the button, blinds and the EP limper and miss the pot? How to play small pairs in MP? What do I do when I raise QQ in LP and get called by 3 people and the flop comes 3 suited but I make a set and the MP limper makes a pot sized bet?

SSHE made such an impact by showing you how to play marginal situations in low limit games and making you a winner by pushing those edges you'd never thought about. I'd love for this to do the same and make people think about exploiting position, implied odds and +EV situations.

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

Also, can we all get advanced copies to review and also help with proof reading (Something at times lacking in 2+2 books) [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

1) Lots of 6 max stuff.

2) I would love some Heads up stuff.

3) What adjustment to make when you go up and down in stakes

4) Decent hands facing resistance vs different opponent types.

5) Cbetting. Consepts regarding HU cbetting:
When to cbet, what kind of flops, what kind of opponents etc
When to float, how to react to frequent floaters.

6)Hand examples, possibly several handexamples with the same opponent: "I make this play now-because i saw my opponent play his hand this way earlier.."

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Tricky to do because ranges are so variable. We might come up with a few shortcuts.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well if it was easy I wouldn't need to buy your book, would I?? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

BTW that 2/5 at Bellagio might not be a complicated game, but it's far from 'bad...' one of the juiciest I've ever seen. Although it's 500 max now anyway.

NT

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

1. Online 6-MAX
2. A companion book with just problems/examples

Re: What would you like to see covered in the upcoming SSNL book?
 

My favorite books related to poker that I've read are the Harrington books. I think this is because he goes through how he thinks about hands in multiple examples. His books really got me thinking about hands the right way and helped me more than any other books. I would like to see examples (and lots of them, like the harringoton books) in which you go over the examples of cash game hands that are difficult. Particularly (sorry about the spelling) out of position hands.