O.T. No Limit Theory and Practice...

[Niwa]

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mediocre book

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[ArturiusX]

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I gotta say, I pretty much automatically buddylist anyone who minraises preflop or limps first-in on the button, both strategies that the book advocates. I'm weighing the arguments they propose.

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Maybe this is part of the plays charm.

[ML4L]

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Any other high stakes boys read it yet?

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I've been going back and forth about whether I would post a formal critique of the book; right now I'm figuring that I probably won't, but here are some random thoughts:

- Content aside, the book is exceptionally well-written. I think I probably have a greater appreciation for that aspect than most people, since I went through the exercise of trying to write essentially the same book. I have a very high opinion of my writing ability, and I can honestly say that Ed does a better job of explaining some of the important concepts than I could have.

- As far as the content goes, it's organized well and is solid theoretically. I wouldn't label it as outstanding, because I think there are a handful of weak spots in which they don't frame a concept especially well. Also, as some people have alluded, the book sometimes comes off as a little "out of touch" with mid-high stakes games, particularly 6-max. Despite those knocks, from a theory standpoint, it would be very difficult to write a better book than T&P. If I had to choose between recommending T&P or Ciaffone/Reuben, I would recommend T&P, although I think that the two books work best as complements.

- Most of the people who are disappointed with the book probably just aren't appreciating it for what it is. Ed and David make it very clear that the book is lacking as far as being an "instructional" guide in which they hold your hand and tell you how to play AA in 100 different scenarios. People who are looking for specific guidance about certain situations or people who were looking for a handbook that they could use to crack tough games are out of luck.

But, the fact that it isn't a high stakes user's manual does not mean that it is worthless to most players. There are fewer than a dozen people on the forums who could read the book and not learn ANYTHING new (and I am not one of those dozen). Even though you can be a big winner without understanding a lot of the things in T&P, there is no question that any player would be a BIGGER winner if he/she understood and could apply the concepts that Ed and David present.

- In summary, the book is very good/valuable but will probably never be "legendary" in most peoples' minds because it doesn't provide enough insight into how to deal with specific "difficult" situations.

So, take that for whatever it's worth...

ML4L

[ML4L]

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I gotta say, I pretty much automatically buddylist anyone who minraises preflop or limps first-in on the button, both strategies that the book advocates. I'm weighing the arguments they propose.

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The reason that both of these things seem so crazy to most people is because:

1) The plays run counter to their "Shania"
2) They never play in game conditions where the plays are correct

Each of these plays was golden in my live 5/10 pot-limit days...

ML4L

[BriMc]

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Good review Arturius.

I liked the book also. I think it is best suited for decent low to mid-limit players (winning players at 100NL-400NL online or 2/5-5/10 live.) who happen to be more inclined to learn and think theoretically than empirically. This describes me almost exactly. I think it has improved my game and I expect I will get a lot more out of it over time.



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My sentiments exactly.

[Shandrax]

Personally I don't like this "opponent reaction percentage"-based approach like "which is the better play"?

A. you make it $500 and your opponents folds 30% of the time
B. you make it $2000 and your opponent folds 80% of the time

Cool beans, but what if I don't know what my opponent will do -> reminds me of Caro and his theory of loose wiring. Maybe my opponent wants to impress the cocktail waitress...

My point is that you can perfectly analyze a meta-game where all probabilities are known, but that doesn't neccessarily reflect the live game situation.

My second point is that it makes no sense to argue with a genius, so I guess Sklansky is right and that's the way how to approach NL.

[Shandrax]

To make it clear, I feel uncomfortable about the rather brutal mixture of guessing and precise math. Maybe a better reminder is the quote in Ace on the River "you don't have to be precise if you don't know what you are talking about".

On the other side if I use game theory to estimate the opponent folding percentage, I always get the same outcome. Let's say if I make it $500, he should fold 30% of the time and if I make it $2000, he should fold 82,5% of the time. It all leads to the same EV.

[TheArtist]

It's a wicked book. The fundamentals are solid, and well written.

Richard

Richard

[Josh.]

maybe i'm a nit, but my biggest disappointment was that they made several huge errors, including (1) mixing up a variable in a complicated equation which i posted about a while back and ed admitted was a mistake, and (2) in an exmaple on implied odds, they wrote about 45 hitting on an A2KT board. they said if you hit a 3 for "the nuts" you stand to win a person's stack. well if both stacks go in on a 3 river we're not winning it even close to everytime because the nuts is QJ

they also dodged some important topics like check-raising (their chapter on this was pretty thin). i think maybe i'm just spoiled by great limit hold'em books because that's a much simpler game

i think your analysis is correct. when i was learning limit, i thought HPFAP was pretty mediocre. now i think it's great. i have a feeling the same will happen with NLTAP

[Baracus]

I think the book was ok and especially a good book for players switching from FL to NL. The authors explain the fundamentals in a good way and I liked the conceptpart, thou there are some questionable concepts too, like concept 17 and concept concept 41. All in all, it was ok and more than I expected from a book.