[MikeyPatriot]

Finished the book today. Nice quick, concise read.

The books is written clearly and I didn't find myself having to read parts over twice because I couldn't understand what the author was trying to say. Contrast to Mathematics of Poker (which I also really enjoyed) where I very often found myself scratching my head.

As others have said, most of the information isn't groundbreaking per se (although I think the SPR concept might be), but it's a lot of stuff that I've thought about that I hadn't really seen in text. I think one thing this book has really helped me with his playing TP hands. For the past 5-6 months, I've been struggling with these hands and have often commented to myself how awkward a 100BB stack plays with a standard raise with TP hands. PNLHE helps you to understand how to manipulate a pot with TP. Further, this book really helped me play against short stacks (technically, playing short stacked). It's a lot easier when you know it's OK to commit to TP or even A high with certain SPRs.

There are a couple things that I hope the authors can help with.

First, as stated, I'm a little lost with how to bring SPR to a reasonable level with 100BB stacks in a standard 6max online game. For example, I raise 3.5BB with AKo from the CO, BTN folds, SB calls, BB folds. So we have an 8BB pot and 92BB stacks for an SPR of 11.5. Nicht gut. Raising 5BB or 2BB brings the SPRs to 8 and 19 respectively. Both are better according to basic SPR strat. However, I don't really feel like minraising is a good default and I don't think you're getting a lot of action with a 5BB raise. Are we just going to have to accept the fact that we are going to have to play at awkward SPRs a lot of the time with 100BB stacks?

Second, example no.3 on pages 261-262. I won't get into detail about the text, but the hand involves hitting TPTK with AK on a very dry board with a bad SPR OOP. The book advises to check here (which I agree with), but fails to offer any sort of plan. I understand that there's is stuff being saved for Vol. 2, but there's not even any sort of general advice about what your plan should be. Are we checking with the intention of calling, then leading the turn? Check/raising? Check/calling all the way down?