How to Dominate $1 and $2 No Limit Hold'em

[4CardStraight]

I've been on the forums for quite some time, I try to be pretty respectful. I appreciate an author that comes here and reads the responses to his book. I have read the entire volume.

I think most 2+2'ers will find this book to be of value, if they view it from the other side of the coin. This book is the "Nit Bible". If you are a vegas pro who plays 1/2NL$ with several thousand dollars in front of you and its 10% of your roll, and you use poker to feed you and/or your family, this probably has very sound advice.

If however, you are trying to maximize your EV in the games you play, this book provides limiting advice, that at times, is factually questionable, and largely strategically in error.

One example direct from the book, page 88. We raise AA preflop and are called from the blinds. The flop is a rainbow AJT, and the blind bets into us. We fold.

This advice is horrific at best, but borders on insanity. The author says we need to place him on a hand, what does he have? Kings? Queens? Oh gosh a king AND a queen? and our aces go into the muck.

We have top set. There was one preflop raise, and one postflop bet. Can we logically deduce that our opponent has the nuts here a significant chunk of the time? Even if he has the stone nuts at present (KQ), do we not have 7 outs to a bigger hand? Does that not happen almost 30% of the time with two cards yet to be put on the board? What are the stack sizes of the players involved? What are the tendancies of the blinds? In this example little is discussed to compare how deep we are truly playing, or how nitty the blinds are. Is it theoretically impossible that he puts us on AK and is betting AJ/AT into us hoping to bet/3bet?

I am not yet a winning player at high stakes deep stack, and I am certainly not up to the quality of most of the authors of poker books. But I seriously think that even moderately advanced 2+2'ers will find many scenarios that border on insanely too tight.

Fold top set because we were called preflop and bet into on the flop? I think that becomes a tad exploitable.

Just my humble thoughts...
Entertaining book. Surely gives great stories. Gives interesting glimpse into the mindset of the ubernit. Unsound advice if I am looking to maximize my expectation at the table. Very sound advice if I am looking to lose as little as possible and generally end up putting all my chips in only when I have by far the best hand.

4Card