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

[howtodominate]

4Card,

Thank you for your complmentary words. I'm always happy when someone finds "this book to be of value". And I like your comment on "great stories". Those things make my day.

I notice you are not yet a winner in no limit. Let me ask you a question. Your example from page 88 does not yet involve player profile to a great extent, so we know nothing about the opponent in your example. The example comes from the early part of the book intended to illustrate danger and reducing the game to playing the player. But you call because you can't let go of your set of aces (a common mistake among new no limit players). You call the pot-sized bet (really? with only seven outs?). The turn is a rag and your opponent makes a bet three times his last bet, several hundred dollars. What are you going to do? You may have already wasted a flop bet. And what are you going to do with his all-in bet after the river? These decisions can drastically affect your EV. Commitment time was after the flop. Do you really want to commit your stack? Or would you rather wait for another time? There will be much better opportunities. For instance, the same situation when you can take the lead with a big bet and put him to guessing. Ah. Now you're playing the game.

But I like your comments. It takes awhile to master no limit and I like that you're intent on doing it. Good skill, sir. Remember, no limit is mostly a people game.

Sam

[Jim C]

I don't think 4card said he was not a winning no-limit player. He said he was not a winner in "high stakes deep stack" no limit holdem. $1/$2NL is not that type of game. There is an enormous difference between those two statements, and your conclusion that he's not a winning player makes no sense. For all we know, 4card might crush the 1/2. I also think you are using his modesty to diminish his (serious) criticisms of your book.

The example from page 88 is *your* example, howtodominate, not 4card's. He was quoting your book! The lack of all of the necessary supportive information right there in the hand description is a shortcoming in your book, not a problem with our understanding. When I read it, I don't remember reading, "your opponent, who has a $4k roll of $100 bills behind his stack, gets his mail at the poker room, and who only bets into the preflop raiser with the stone nuts, now makes a pot-sized bet into the field." Furthermore, where are you playing 1/2 so deep that we are worried about a "several hundred dollar" turn bet and another huge all-in bet on the river? Where can you play 1/2 with thousand-dollar stacks? Sign me up! Oh yeah, the Wynn, and generally only the nits that 4card described are that deep. And, if somehow a "typical" 1/2er *were* that deep, doesn't that suggest that we have very good implied odds? The whole thinking is confused.

I also think it is terrible advice, and should be considered only as a rather extreme departure from basic strategy because of a very thorough and precise opponent read. I haven't read your whole book, but from what I've seen, "nit bible" is a pretty good description. Coming to the conclusion that a fold is correct here must result from an attitude where something other than maximizing EV is paramount. You said it yourself: you want a "better opportunity". Presumably, you want to only put your money in as a prohibitive favorite. That, by definition, does not maximize EV.

Given a table full of typical $1/$2 live-game players, a pot that is raised preflop and called in several spots, and 100-200BB stacks, you bet your ass we're committing with top set. And no, we don't call the flop, unless we feel that the only way we can get the money in is to raise the turn. On the turn a K or Q would change our plans, but we are crushing the range of a 1/2 flop donk bettor, and we have good equity even if we're behind. A fold is just horrible in comparison. If it were my last buyin on earth and starvation was the result of losing this hand, I *might* be able to fold to the donk bet, but I'd hate myself for it and might end up dead from suicide anyhow. Since you feel your book mostly illustrates that no-limit is a "people game", can you explain why you feel that a typical 1/2 player would bet into the preflop raiser when he flops the nuts? I must say I rarely see this. In my experience, the "typical" opponent will either c/c or c/r, and mostly the former. Underplaying monster hands is rampant among those opponents.

No doubt becoming a nit would be a vast improvement for the majority of players. No doubt playing a nit strategy will beat the low-stakes games. Admittedly, your book targets $1/$2 (live?) games, which are filled with terrible opponents that will pay off the unimaginative nit.

That said, I do not think this strategy will win as much money as possible. From what I've read, the focus is much more on reducing risk and variance than it is either making the most profit or playing the opponents. I think it's *fine* advice given those rather large qualifications. In my opinion, it is not particularly sophisticated advice that will help experienced players, however.

My suggestion is read enough of this book to know how these guys think, so you understand why you don't give them any big action and why its so easy to blow them off of hands.

Edit: if we *knew* he had KQ, we would sometimes have to call anyway, depending on how much money is involved. We have 35% equity against the nuts, and there is just no way we can limit his range that much. Sorry, Sam, but this hand is a huge red flag. I really don't understand how you can defend it. Admit this was a bad example. That way, people might be willing to see if the rest of your book has good stuff rather than concluding you are simply confused about the game.

[howtodominate]

Jim C,

You are right in many ways. But some of it is out of context. The example was 4Card's example of one of my examples. My example was not intended as a hand, just an illustration of a situation. Fully played hands are elsewhere in the book. None is played by a "nit". Read the whole book, please. The first pages are merely exercises.

Yes, there are thousands of dollars in 1-2 games in Las Vegas every day.

You are right that the book is intended for new players in strictly low blinds games.

Sam

[Red Racer]

You are a patient man, Sam.

I read page 88 once again and it seems a fair treatment of the situation, taking into account the player profile, various positions and a possible bluff on the part of the reader. As you say, treatment of stacks and hands is later in the book. No nittiness there.

For me, the most valuable part of Dominate is how to place opponents on hands and then knowing what to do about it. The book does a good job of showing how to get information during a hand and how to use it.

Most new or experienced players who are hesitant will play more hands more aggressively after reading the book. It’ll result in playing hands more often. Experienced no limit players can skip to the middle of the book and pick up a few nuggets.
Sam, I’m a semi-experienced player and you have helped my game. I’ll have to say the Ambush Bluff is my favorite and I use it a lot.

[MASTERHOLMES]

ok I have read this book, and corresponded briefly with the author about the book. It wasn't because I didnt understand the book, at the time it was because I was providing my personal info so i could recieve a corrected version of the book.

I am happy to say that I was sent a copy of the book with the improved printing free of charge.
and on the inside of the cover was the corrections that was shared.

my original statement that I pmed the author
"was going to post that this book was intended to be a textbook, studied over time and not an over night book to make you a dominator."
further study of the book i sincerly believe this is the case still.

one thing that I took some getting used to in terms of thinking was how 50 preflop hands charts stood out as differnt for the emphasis was on hands that win the most money as opposed to hands that win the most time.
in thinking of that since thing, winning the most, doesn't equate to winning the biggest pots.

yet in thinking further upon that,, in order to effectively know how to use these reccomend hands to get the most money as opposed to winning the most, one has to know how to play these hands against all opponets.

it is for this reason that one is shown how to play the differnt styles over time so the reader could use this as a textbook for learning how to play best as maniac and then how to combat this.

always the emphasis is the people game as opposed to a numbers game, or the correct play game.

yet how can one learn how a person plays when we are all unique. the answer is not the individual person but the maniac person, or the passive person.
that is why learning the styles before starting to learn the dominator style is essential.
how can one become davinci without learning the basics and nunces of every style before specializing.

of course the dominator is a term just as the maniac is just a term and a style.
so the dominator could easily be taken up and adapted by anyone.
you would have the slightly more aggressive dominator or the slightly more rockish dominator.

I remember one teaching is , if you start to wait for a premium hand ,, you are no longer dominating.
that is of course taken out of context, and is not the exact quote.

in the end it all comes down to this,, once you are playing the cards and not the person , you are no longer the dominator.
once you are playing postion and just c betting for no reason..
you are no longer the dominator but a betting robot.

personaly i found this book a great way to put people on ranges based on their style,
and a great primer on how to play people.

conversly I didn't think tom hellmuth was a mistake when i first read it for before that , there was a mention of tom and jerry and so I thought the author was calling phill hellmuth "tom hellmuth" to have us think of him as tom from the tom and jerry cartoon.
and so when it became clear he didnt' mean that .
eheh i was a fool [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[1p0kerboy]

Good post Holmes.

I'm gonna pick this book up (after reading this thread). Review to follow.

[Al Mirpuri]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I'm through it now. I won't change my opinion that this is a book worthy of reading. Being picky for a moment, it's a little alarming to see references to "Tom Hellmuth" and "confidant" (not confident) in the text. Those are small points though.

[/ QUOTE ]

If stuff liket that mattered, really mattered, two plus two would not be in business!

[smbruin22]

i am putting together a big book order online... and am uncertain about buying this book

on the one hand, it's a big book and i liked the author's writing style in his magazine article i read. somewhat obvious advice, but i liked it nonetheless.

but i don't understand the general strategy... what is the dream table for this style? AND, in the preceding review, it seems to talk about playing alot of hands. and presumably hitting a few and getting paid. good strategy, but i don't think of that as "dominator". to me, "dominator" is more stealing pots, which is pretty difficult in 1/2 NL with 3-4 other callers..... is author's style for 4-5 callers or only one other caller??

thanks in advance!!

[Deadpool_AZ]

Mr. O'Connor,
I purchased your book from Amazon. I like it. As far as the writing goes, it was a fun read. The stories add a little spice you don't normally find in other books. As far as playing the "Dominator" style, I'm not sure it'll be right for everyone, as it seems the swings could be pretty drastic. The raise or fold style can get pretty pricey! Also, in many games now there seem to be so many LAGs that it can get REALLY expensive. Well, assuming you're not just folding everything and falling back into a nice solid TA style. I suppose that's one reason you mention the fairly high bankroll requirement you do ($10k).

Anyway, the book was a fun read. I see why people say it picks up after about 200 pages (more like 225 IIRC). It's kind of standard instruction before that and not really much new info. The hand rankings were different and I'd like to use them some more to see how it feels during play. After you get into the Dominator it seems to get more subjective, which is good.

So all in all, good book. I'll be reading it again and maybe incorporating some of it into my own game. Maybe...my first experiments didn't go so well. Of course, that's probably very much due to a lack of experience with the style. And like you said, the experience is very important.