Review: Making the Final Table -- Erick Lindgren

[feint06]

Making the Final Table, No Limit Texas Hold’em Winning Strategies for Surviving and Thriving
Erick Lindgren
Copyright 2005
List Price: $15.95 USD
129 pages (+50 pages of appendixes)


Summary:
Making the Final Table walks the reader through the various stages of a large multi-table tournament, providing detailed strategies for the various situations an aggressive player will face along the way. Lindgren includes fairly detailed analysis of pre and post flop play, stressing the importance of position and observation in implementing his small-ball style of chip accumulation. Summed in one sentence, Lindgren plays for the win, not to survive.


Impressions:
This book has some excellent insight into aggressive tournament play, but at the expense of being a repeating WPT advertisement. The treatment of a WPT championship as the end-all be-all accomplishment for a professional player gets incredibly old.

Aside from that, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact Lindgren frequently referred to actual bet amounts – something lacking in many NL texts. Obviously he doesn’t suggest you always bet ½ pot with a draw and near the pot with a made hand, but giving any guidelines is a great start. He covers probe/pot control bets, c-bets, and discusses when to check-call vs bet out. Additionally, Lindgren shows how he picks the places to be aggressive – attacking weakness at most opportunities, while avoiding confrontations with either large or short stacks. He also shows how and why he changes gears at different tables.


Critiques:
One of the first hands in the book deals with getting AA preflop on the bubble of a satellite tournament. In many cases, this would be a fold, but in the example hand Lindgren has an M of 15 while the remaining players have M’s of 2 or less. Lindgren still advocates a fold here, advising players to let the short stacks knock each other out. This is incredibly nitty for an aggressive player, especially when the worst case scenario is Lindgren doubles up one player to an M of 4, while maintaining an M of 13 for himself…

WPT WPT WPT WPT WPT WPT – enough already

Headsup section is weak on analysis

Recommendation:
I highly recommend this book for advanced beginner and intermediate tournament players. Advanced players may pick up an idea or two, but likely could do without.

[dwf76]

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Recommendation:
I highly recommend this book for advanced beginner and intermediate tournament players. Advanced players may pick up an idea or two, but likely could do without.

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Totally agree, if you can find it cheap its worth a look.

Good book reviews feint06, keep them coming.

[checkmate36]

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Recommendation:
I highly recommend this book for advanced beginner and intermediate tournament players. Advanced players may pick up an idea or two, but likely could do without.


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Thanks for the review.

I just picked up the book from boarders and Im looking forward to reading it.

[Starfish]

I've owned it quite some time, but haven't read because I haven't started playing tournaments, and I don't know if I ever will. So, how about cash game applications? Worth reading, or some parts of the book?

[dwf76]

Starfish, I don't think there's much a cash game player could take from the book, better off sticking with PNL.

Antonio Esfandiari has done a cash game book as part of the same WPT book series, but having read it I can't help but feel let down considering what a great cash game player he is.

[Starfish]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, betting analysis refered above sounds interesting, so maybe I'll have a look at it some day. I know something about tournament play from Harrington's books, so I should be able to filter out the tourney stuff.