Review: Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games by Stox/Zobags

[tobotronik]

ok, well... i just came across the blind defense section and i think i noticed a mistake. the chapter deals with 3 betting from the small blind in a steal situation.

(page 144)
introduction:
"if you 3 bet a button raiser and the small blind folds and the initial raiser caps, then...etc"
then he goes on about postflop play and says:
"check and if he bets out you get 9:1"

why 9? 4 bets from the raiser, 4 bets from hero + 1 dead from the BB who folded, +1 bet from the button on the flop makes 10, so it should be 10:1 - or where's my mistake?

the book is great by the way. always loved stoxtraders play very much, the book really fulfilled my expectations!

[stoxtrader]

I read that page 145 and agree with you. 10-1 is the correct odds you are getting. sorry!

[adanthar]

stox,

One minor error I haven't seen mentioned - in Hand 25 (page 261), the board has 4 diamonds on it at the end of the hand, but it looks like the 3 on the turn is supposed to be a brick.

Aside from that...as an almost pure NL/some HORSE player, this is a book that let me instantly take a shot at HSL and understand what I was doing postflop. This is a gold standard book and better than SSH by a significant amount when it comes to mid and high stakes games. Thanks.

[Michael Davis]

adanthar,

I don't think that "error" is minor. In fact, the river play by stox is very debatable and very close as to whether he should bet out on the river or not, whereas it is fairly obvious to check the river against a slightly overaggro opponent who will bluff the fourth diamond and potentially valuebet worse hands than AK. The entire description of the hand afterwards is problematic until the reader figures out that the board is not supposed to contain four diamonds. And that Stox is advocating a checkcall on this river is much, much more important (and controversial) than if the fourth diamond hits, thus it is possible that some dullard readers may not be thinking appropriately when analyzing this hand.

All things considered, this book is extremely good and extremely valuable. The one thing I would caution is to make sure much of the advice applies in your games. Specifically, if you are playing a lot of live midlimits, while much of this advice is going to be valuable playing against maybe 2-3 players at your table, many of your opponents will be considerably tighter than the opponents stox plays against. Especially consider your opponents preflop raising standards and how they relate to defending something like A3s against an UTG raise. Or pay attention to your opponents who don't steal from late position without a premium hand. Also, you should pay special attention to defending your blind when a bad player coldcalls in the small blind.

These situations are covered by the book, and the authors very clearly state their target audience. Just be very careful to apply the information in the right spots, and that may mean for those of you playing in soft live games, the types of blind defense situations described in the book only occur 5 or so times per session.

I don't think Stox would disagree with anything I wrote, and I think the book explains that, so perhaps I am an unnecessary Cassandra.

-Michael

[Shandrax]

Errata: Page 12 - open raise chart:

There is a blank (no data) in the jack-offsuit column 1 off the button. What about JTo?

[robispo]

Maybe it's just me, but I'm having a hard time understanding if WTHEG is applicable to low-limit shorthanded games ($3-6 and lower)? The book looks great from what I've read, but the title and text seems a bit ambiguous as far as whether or not any of this advice is useful in shorthanded games at the lower-limits online. The introductory pages offer a brief description of "Typical opponents by Limits", and the low limit games and their unique properties are briefly described, but none of the Stox hands or examples appear to pertain to low-limit games.

Is this book recommended or beneficial for online low-limit shorthanded players, or it is mainly geared toward mid-to-high limit players ($15-30 and up)?

If this has already been asked, I apologize in advance for not sifting through the previous 15+ pages. If Stox or Jeff read this, perhaps you could clarify for me--my head hurts.

[ledfoot]

I'd like to add my interest to robispo's. Namely, if I play mainly 8-16 live which is 9 handed tables, is this limit too low for aggressive BB and SB defense to have value? My initial assumption is that Stox's strategies are more applicable to the higher limits, particularly shorthanded. Thanks.

[Niediam]

The specific limits that you are playing is basically irrelevent. What you need to consider is if the stratigies are applicable against your various opponents.

But for the record I see those type of guys all over the place as low as .5/1 online but not too much at 3/6 live.

[uDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
The specific limits that you are playing is basically irrelevent. What you need to consider is if the stratigies are applicable against your various opponents.


[/ QUOTE ]

Though he gives specific advice about playing against tough opponents, it seems to me that the most important part of this book is that it shows how to adjust your game.

This is useful material for any player willing to do the work, but if you try to follow his specific advice without adjustment, you are likely to be making a mistake.