Re: Some top players dislike NLHTAP: Why?
[ QUOTE ]
I've heard that Brian Townsend don't think highly of the book, why is that exactly? It's one of my favorite books and I respect Townsend a alot.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's a mess ... the first 100 or so pages on theory are fine, but then it dissolves into an utter mess, when he starts to talk about the practice.
The order of the examples are a bit random and the examples themselves are incomplete .. The reads on the villians is in the examples are either "good", "tough" or "weak" and sometimes there are no reads.
Like you get advice to always fold a hand in a certain situation in vacuum.
Then there is the total ignoring of the mechanism that is raise pf then cbet ... apply pressure and live of the blinds especially if table is nitty (not the same as bad)
And also the wierd wish to limp on the btn if blinds are weak, most prefer to play raised pots in position with weak players.
Etc ...
This is some of the things I noticed rereading it a month ago ... the thing is, that it is not a bad book (just poorly written), if you actually know how to play and are able to fill in the blanks and what table conditions need to be in order for this or that to be correct. But I pity the noob who has to wrestle with it first time around.
I feel this is a book for new to intermiediate players, but the language and organization is such, that it caters very poorly to that player type. On the other hand, the established ssnl+ 2+2'er finds it to shallow.
In it's defence, it is rumoured to have been written for live games (1-2, 2-5 and 5-10) which usually play different (softer) than online games
PNL on the other hand show very great promise ... the first book being fairly simple tho as it should be for starters, but great promise, two thumbs up to Mason for signing on Matt and Sunny !!!
PS. Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of Sklanskys work especially TOP and 7CSFAP, but this one is imho a near miss [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
|