New tournament book - Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide, Tournament Ed

[RubbishCards]

I just noticed this in the books forum yesterday - it's a new Super System-esque book from the Full Tilt pros, and specifically about tournament poker. According to that review, the book is NOT what I assumed it would be from the title - i.e. a lame Full Tilt informercial a la Doyle's online book / sections of SS2.

I just grabbed a copy at Borders today and have skimmed very quickly through some of the stud sections so I thought I'd throw out a few details. This isn't really a review, I'm just putting this up on the radar cos I guess most people haven't noticed it yet.

The book is 438 pages long, with roughly 90 pages dedicated to stud (hi, 8/b and razz), 20 to Omaha (LO8 and PLO, no PLO8), 250 to Holdem.

There are 4 stud chapters:
- 7 card stud: tournament hands, by Keith Sexton
- 7 card stud: tournament strategy, by David Gray
- Stud/8, by Ted Forrest
- Razz, by Ted Forrest and Huck Seed, narrated by Michael Craig

Keith Sexton's chapter is appears to be a basic "how to play 7 stud" guide a la Chip's SS1 chapter, without much talk of tournament specific play.

David Gray's chapter, on the other hand, is almost all about tournament adjustments. He starts with a few pages talking about differences between cash games and tournaments, then goes onto differences between 7 stud tournaments and NLHE tournaments, and why you need to play like a huge nit. There's a very small bit on ante structures, and some talk of big stack and short stack play.

Ted's stud/8 chapter starts out with a look at the ante structure for the WSOP stud/8 event (as it has been for the last couple of years), and talks about playing the early rounds with their gigantic ante. Then we get the usual stuff on 3rd st hand selection, and some talk of position and stealing. There is also a slightly confusingly labelled "hands to play short handed", in which he is actually referring to which hands play better heads up or 3 handed, and is nothing to do with playing at a short handed table. Then we get a few more pages for later street play, without much in the way of tournament specific strategy.

After this, we get some stuff on late tournament play - adjusting for lower effective stack sizes, avoiding speculative hands, stealing more, abusing the bubble, short stacked play. Then the chapter ends with a couple of pages covering final table and heads up play.

The Razz chapter, which I have skimmed the least, is in a slightly strange format - it is essentially written by Michael Craig, transcribing a recorded interview with Huck Seed and Ted Forrest the night before the 2006 WSOP razz event. The topics of conversation are:
Starting hands, defending the bring-in, ante structure, importance of exposed cards, stealing, knowing your table, choosing to call or raise a playable hand, putting opponents on hands on later streets, getting away from hands, the bubble, short stacked play.

There is also some general discussion of razz and its horrible reputation, the one time ESPN televisied it, and the recent increase in popularity thanks to HORSE, etc.


Overall, I don't really feel qualified to say that the advice in the book is good or bad, but I will be very interested to see what other people on the forum have to say about it, and am looking forward to actually reading it properly.