[Sean Fraley]

I've read the book a couple times now, and I sometimes wonder if either I'm reading a different book than the rest of you or if I have some weird mental defect that allows me to see the material presented in such a fashion that doesn't give me the impression that the only thing the book talks about is preflop raise sizing. I mean seriously people, is that the only thing that you guys got out of this? Yes they suggest sizing your raises to try and get a favorable SPR. Everybody noticed that. It just seems that the instant that everyone read that they were to busy being indignant to notice the sentences on the same friggin' page where Ed, Matt, and Sunny also mention that you don't have to do this and if you are playing against opponents that will figure out what you are doing you should not do this.

The actual focus of the book was to present a way of thinking about the hand from the instant you are dealt you hole cards that lets you start planning the hand based around what kind of hand you are most likely to wind up with postflop and what your opponents are likely to do. When playing hands where the most likely situation on the flop is to have either top pair or an overpair this basically boils down to:

a) Trying to get it all-in when we flop a big hand (set, top two, quads) or have a decent one pair hand and favorable SPR against an opponent or opponents who will stack of with something we beat.

b) Playing for a small/medium size pot when we flop a TP/overpair hand when we are against a villain or villains who will only be getting it all-in for the size of our stacks if they have a hand that beats us.

Here is where a problem that the authors have mentioned repeatedly on this forum occurred. In the decision as to what should be included in Vol I and what should be left for Vol II they decided to keep the material about planning around getting it all-in but to leave the in depth material about how to deal with speculative hands and stealing postflop for Vol II. Apparently, people were expecting this book to be nothing more than that NL equivalent of SSHE and seemed to be under the distinct impression that Vol I would cover all pertinent topics. It doesn't. It is just the first in a series.

The book actually has helped me. SPR gave me a nice structured framework with which to keep stack sizes in mind from the beginning and do a much better job of planning hands in a fashion that helps me avoid being faced with a difficult all-in decision that I'm not prepared for. It helped me to figure out exactly how to adjust my preflop range according to my opponents stack sizes. Commitment threshold has helped by defining a point where I need to look at the situation and decide whether or not I want the chips in the middle.