Professional No-Limit Hold 'em Volume 1 Review Thread

[Ulkis]

In my opinion this book can be very useful for a limit player too; some of the concepts in the early part of the book I've never seen in print before this clearly before, if at all:

- discounting out by probability, not just ballpark discounting.
- hand ranges, equity, combo-calculations. Especially this makes the book already worth $29.95.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
Mason you're not giving enough credit to him here, and not taking his opion seriously. They say don't judge a book by it's cover, but if I pick up a book, and the first 20 something pages suck, I'm going to return it. The poster says that more than 50 pages suck which is a lot. If more people say or think the same thing you have a problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

For almost any instructional book I can think of, the first 1/6th of the book will almost certainly be a review of things I already know. Even that is not a bad thing, there is nothing wrong with reviewing and strengthening the basics.

If you're going to judge a 300 page technical book by 50 of its pages, at least make it the last 50 (not counting the index and appendix).

[lilman2636]

just want to say thanks
matt sunny and ed
i am almost done with the book
The r.e.m. concept is great
this a great cash game book

[gregorio]

[ QUOTE ]

this a great cash game book

[/ QUOTE ]
if you are playing a shortstack. Or if you are not playing with a shortstak, raise enough preflop so a 1/2 games plays like 2/5 so your full stack at 1/2 can be played like a shortstack at 2/5.

[ QUOTE ]
If you're going to judge a 300 page technical book by 50 of its pages, at least make it the last 50 (not counting the index and appendix).

[/ QUOTE ]

I found the last 100 pages had almost nothing worthwhile for playing online vs people with full stacks. The way to hit your target SPR if you're in a game with full stacks is to bet 6BB and get called in 2 places. This never happens in any 6-max game i've ever played online. In which case so much of the advice comes down to, "with the SPR you have, it is hard to play TP hands."

I feel like each chapter would have been a nice poobah post or something, but that the book as a whole is not worth buying. I read through it in half an hour and got about as much out of it as I would get reading stickied threads on 2+2.

[gmcarroll33]

Hey Matt and Sunny I see you guys have been getting a lot of unpositive reviews here lately. Late me change the tune for this thread and tell you guys how much I enjoyed the book. I'll agree that the first 100 pages or so was more like a refresher for me as was REM, but the commitment threshold and SPR has been stuff that has helped me out a lot lately. It sure has changed the way I play some of my hands.

For instance when UTG in the past with AK or AQ I would either start out raising outright, or just call a raise. Both which gave me pretty bad SPR's against multiple opponents. I find myself limp reraising way more often with these hands which confuses people because a lot of them expect a monster, which either leads to me getting reraised back to where I can easily fold preflop, or I can hit top pair and feel good getting all in, or bluff somebody on the flop.

From NLHETP and always adopted the concept that certain hands have certain values and certain preflop raising sizes, SPR helped explain why. It's also got me giving up big hands a little more frequently when the stacks are so huge and I can't get a low SPR. Probably saving me some money every now and then.

At the same time the commitment threshold has helped me avoid some costly costly mistakes by not overbluffing, or over calling with a lot of pots.

I do have 1 question about the upcoming volume for you guys if you can answer. It seemed to me that the first volume was all about setting up preflop play to make postflop play easier when you hit your desired hand. Will the second volume be more about the postflop play of poker? I thought I read a while back that you guys were going to talk about certain post flop moves that were known moves among pros but not known among amatuers.

I cant remember what pg it was in the book, but I really enjoyed the exaple of using SPR with 76 to bluff JJ after you call the flop and an Ace appears making the person reluctantly fold their jacks. Seems like playing my opponents hand postflop instead of playing my own is a weakness I have right now. I usually hit and call or raise with hands like that, or miss and fold. Of course I learned this strategy from Super System. Hoping you guys really get into the postflop subject in the next book.

Great job on the 1st volume, and looking forward to what you guys konw that I don't in the 2nd volume.

[NL Rounder]

Finally found and thoroughly reviewed this at a bookstore today.

My assessment is it's a decently written basic NL primer geared for beginners. Any experienced NL player that got a lot out of this book has/had some truly serious leaks in their game.

Good luck with Volume II.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
I found the last 100 pages had almost nothing worthwhile for playing online vs people with full stacks. The way to hit your target SPR if you're in a game with full stacks is to bet 6BB and get called in 2 places. This never happens in any 6-max game i've ever played online. In which case so much of the advice comes down to, "with the SPR you have, it is hard to play TP hands."

I feel like each chapter would have been a nice poobah post or something, but that the book as a whole is not worth buying. I read through it in half an hour and got about as much out of it as I would get reading stickied threads on 2+2.

[/ QUOTE ]

You, like many people, just missed the point.

I don't know why I have so much patience, but let's try again.

Let's say you are on the turn, have the nut flush draw, and your opponent moves all-in for his last $100. You are heads up and you have him covered. There was $100 in the pot before his play. You are sure he has you beat. Do you call?

Let's assume you half way know what you are doing, and decide to fold. This means that pot odds are worthless and any book that explains pot odds is a waste of time, because you can't call here, right?

[threads13]

[ QUOTE ]
I read through it in half an hour and got about as much out of it as I would get reading stickied threads on 2+2.

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha! Sounds like you need to read slower.

On a side note, I am surprised how many people are upset that the book covers the fundamentals. I am of the opinion that often a big difference between a good player and a great player is that the great player has a better understanding of fundamentals.

[Kanu]

Hey, signed up to 2+2 just to post here, just like to say, read the book through once and i think it's very good. Also, i think it's great the authors take the time to post here. A couple of things it would be good if you could comment on though which i haven't seen mentioned here or in the study group threads i've read so far (so please direct me to the right place if you have already answered). I think you place too much emphasis in the book on achieving a good SPR and suggest making strange moves such as (p225) limping/min-raising with KK. If you limp with KK UTG 8 handed you could find yourself in a multi-way pot OOP with a big pocket pair which is surely a much worse position to be in than having an unfavourable SPR?! I'd think it would be much better to (for example) raise making the pot HU and then play it passively to encourage your aggressive opponent to steal. I think this advice is especially bad since beginner/intermediate players reading the book may well find it hard to fold their KK in a multiway pot OOP when they flop an overpair and are beaten, I understand that you're not saying always limp KK rather than raise if it will give an unfavourable SPR but i just think it is a bad example to give people. You also suggest limping hands like AQ in parts of the book to get a high rather than medium SPR where i feel that raising is a much better play. If you limp AQ in a multiway pot you are likely to lose a small pot most of the time, win a small pot sometimes or lose a big pot rarely (assuming opponents aren't getting in big pots with TPWK etc). If you raise, even with an unfavourable SPR, i think the hand plays much better. So overall i guess i'm trying to say, great concept and i'll definitely be aware of it and incorporate it into my game but do you think in trying to enforce it's importance you may have overstated it somewhat to the exclusion of other important concepts which may lead readers to misplay hands?

Comment 2 is that it would be great to see some more discussion on 3 bet pots. The concepts given are great for raised pots but in aggro online games raise to 4bb 3bet to 13bb is something you see a hell of a lot. This means with 100bb stacks, more than 10% goes in preflop and a cbet takes us to more than 1/3 of the stacks. This is where most tough decisions come in when you 3bet, cbet, get shoved on and have a hand. I guess you'll say don't cbet if you're not committed (or have nothing and are purely stealing) but then what? c/f flop? This lets people steal from you very easily if you have say 99 and flop comes T65. c/f flop is very weak but betting (or c/c) puts you over the commitment threshold when you might not be committed. So then you might say don't 3bet to 13bb pre? Surely if you are playing in a game with good aggro players, it is not an option to have a very narrow 3betting range? Watching cardrunners videos etc, the top players will always have a wide 3 betting range. Comments on how SPR fits in with these aggro online 6max games would be greatly appreciated.

Finally, you say varying your raise size pre depending on what you have will not make your hands obvious to your opponents as you will be betting different amounts against different stacks etc. I'm not sure how well this holds as if there are varying stack sizes at the table, you mostly don't know who will call your pre-flop raise so you will probably raise to suit a 100bb stack size almost always. Also if your opponents have read your book they will soon work it out! Creating a low SPR means TP/overpair type hand almost always, creating a high SPR means you are worried about creating a medium one and can probably be pushed off your hand etc.

Anyway, this was a longer post than i originally intended and just to make it clear, i think it is a great book which shows important concepts but these are just a few things that came to mind after reading it through once, maybe after rereading more closely i will understand more fully.

[gregorio]

[ QUOTE ]

You, like many people, just missed the point.

I don't know why I have so much patience, but let's try again.

Let's say you are on the turn, have the nut flush draw, and your opponent moves all-in for his last $100. You are heads up and you have him covered. There was $100 in the pot before his play. You are sure he has you beat. Do you call?

Let's assume you half way know what you are doing, and decide to fold. This means that pot odds are worthless and any book that explains pot odds is a waste of time, because you can't call here, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

I am quite sure I did not miss the point of the book, and I am not sure what your example has to do with my post or the book.

[ QUOTE ]

On a side note, I am surprised how many people are upset that the book covers the fundamentals. I am of the opinion that often a big difference between a good player and a great player is that the great player has a better understanding of fundamentals.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am not upset that the book covers the fundamentals, but was very disappointed that a book that received so much praise for being the greatest thing ever written about cash-game NL barely gets past the fundamentals, and is so heavily focused on loose live FR games.

With all the hype, and "Professional" in the title, I was expecting something more along the level of Stox's book.