Professional No-Limit Hold 'em Volume 1 Review Thread

[Ulkis]

I bought the book out of interest to NL (I play micro LHE) because I like 2+2 publishing style and was interested in comparing NL to limit. I have to say I like this book too. It is not a cook book, which is good. It sets out a template and framework, it is then up to the reader to apply it. What is good it is not said "do this" and "do that". Similarly to SSHE it shows the reader how to think themselves.

I look forward to Vol II. I have always been more fond of limit but because of this book I will want to test its ideas in NL. Keep'em comin'.

[Gabe DV]

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for your comments Mason. I am sorry if anything that I said appeared to be disparaging to you or two plus two.

You are preeminent in poker publishing. There really isn't anyone in a close second.

I sincerely mean this.

PNL sux raw eggs [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

you're a pretty mature guy. And I am still waiting to hear a substantive criticism of the advice in the book.

[felson]

As Matt mentioned, some of the early Amazon reviews were written by people who read the book prior to publication, including me. (I even had time to read the hard copy before writing my review.) I stand behind everything that I wrote there.

[otter]

point taken...my apologies. The book, in fact is getting better halfway through and since it's not designed for pro's I think it's a good book for beginners, novices and the details are well presented.

[Shandrax]

It is very simple: If you think the book contains tons of new stuff, then you probably didn't know much about NL already. If you think there is zero new information, then you already know the basics of hand ranges and exponential growth of the pot.

In my opinion this book is pretty decent for beginners. While I don't agree with some of the advice, I think it gives them a lot of pointers where to start thinking about their game and working on it.

There is another nice side effect: You can probably move them off their top pair hands more often in the future. Nothing is worse than having your T-4o called down by a n00b with TPTK when the stacks are deep.

[jeffnc]

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It is very simple: If you think the book contains tons of new stuff, then you probably didn't know much about NL already. If you think there is zero new information, then you already know the basics of hand ranges and exponential growth of the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]

The book does several things. It gives basic information for beginners to learn. It give confidence to intermediate players that those basic ideas really are the very things professionals think about as they play - it's getting good at those things, rather than some "magical" quality. Don't underestimate how important it is to read that.

And most importantly, it introduces thinking about planning hands in terms of SPR, which is completely new in print and is not related to how good or experienced you are.

[Borknagar]

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I only went to this effort because I was astounded by the complete lack of content in PNL.

[/ QUOTE ]

How would you know? by your own admission you only read the first 53 pages. By the way, the word count for pages 1-53 is 12,591. For the complete book, it's 82,445.

MM

[/ 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.


Regards,
Jeroen

[Sunny Mehta]

I believe everyone is entitled to critique and criticize the book. I have absolutely no problem with that. My biggest problem with jsbjoe's "review" is that he calls the first 53 pages fluff, but gives no specific reasons why, cites no particular sections or chapters from those pages which he thinks are especially fluffy, nor gives any examples of where all those fluffy concepts are exhausted in other books. Ironically, one might find his critique rather "fluffy"!

Neither Matt, Mason, or I are saying "yeah the first 53 pages suck, but read the rest!" We're saying, "the first 53 pages are NOT fluff - not even close. They do cover fundamental topics (which is explicitly stated), but they are important fundamentals, and most of them are not covered well in previous NL books."

Interestingly, we're currently doing a PNL study group in the Micro Stakes forum. I would say that the general strategic discussion in that forum, on average, is still more advanced than most "average" NL discussion. And even in that forum, we spent a good week on the first 53 pages of PNL with very good vigorous discussion, Q&A, and conceptual review.

link:

Day One: "Odds and Outs" and "Bet Sizing"

Day Two: "Stack Sizes"

Day Three: "Pot Size"


To each his own I suppose.

-S

[fraac]

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Interestingly, we're currently doing a PNL study group in the Micro Stakes forum.

[/ QUOTE ]
Link me, fatty.

[Sunny Mehta]

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[ QUOTE ]
Interestingly, we're currently doing a PNL study group in the Micro Stakes forum.

[/ QUOTE ]
Link me, fatty.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's currently stickied at the top of this forum, but here you go...(at least this is what we have so far)...

Day One: "Odds and Outs" and "Bet Sizing"

Day Two: "Stack Sizes"

Day Three: "Pot Size"

Day Four: Commitment

Day Five: Pot Control

Day Six: Position/Hand Reading/FIP

Day Seven: The REM Process "Intro" and "R is for Range of Hands"