Professional No Limit Vol. II

[daveT]

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6 max and FR are not the same. Different concepts have different levels of importance. Yes it is the same game and most things apply to both, but the importance of headsup and blind situations is so much higher in 6 max than FR (at least at low stakes). I understand poker theory (or at least as much as I ever will), but I want more specific advice on certain situations that come up a lot in 6 max compared to FR. I want to see hand examples for 6 max that simply aren't likely to occur in FR (once again at least at smaller stakes).

Finally please stop responding to posts with a bunch of hearts... it creeps me out.

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Top pair is more powerful. You can send 32.95 to me through paypal. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[mrjetguy]

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6 max and FR are not the same. Different concepts have different levels of importance. Yes it is the same game and most things apply to both, but the importance of headsup and blind situations is so much higher in 6 max than FR (at least at low stakes). I understand poker theory (or at least as much as I ever will), but I want more specific advice on certain situations that come up a lot in 6 max compared to FR. I want to see hand examples for 6 max that simply aren't likely to occur in FR (once again at least at smaller stakes).

Finally please stop responding to posts with a bunch of hearts... it creeps me out.

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Top pair is more powerful. You can send 32.95 to me through paypal. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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That's the kind of generalization that obviously isn't always true. It depends on the makeup of the table and how many people are seeing flops, etc.

Money shipped for effort anyways.

[soah]

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6 max and FR are not the same. Different concepts have different levels of importance. Yes it is the same game and most things apply to both, but the importance of headsup and blind situations is so much higher in 6 max than FR (at least at low stakes). I understand poker theory (or at least as much as I ever will), but I want more specific advice on certain situations that come up a lot in 6 max compared to FR. I want to see hand examples for 6 max that simply aren't likely to occur in FR (once again at least at smaller stakes).

Finally please stop responding to posts with a bunch of hearts... it creeps me out.

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if you're playing against reasonably competent players, they will be playing pretty tight from early position... in a nine handed game that's not a donkfest you can figure the first three players all fold at least 50% of the time... which means half the hands you play are essentially six-max hands

any book that doesn't prepare you for how to play in spots where someone is opening the pot from mid- or late-position is not teaching you much

most pots even in full ring games are going to be contested heads up or sometimes three ways on the flop (again assuming a game that's not really fishy like low limit live games) and the exact position of the players involved is only important in determining their hand ranges, which is a skill that is equally important regardless of whether you prefer short or full games. Each type of game can/will have some nits, LAGs, maniacs, TAGs, etc and they will all play similarly regardless of the format of the game. Different types of players are sometimes attracted to specific games and many players don't play well, which results in the games being played differently, but that doesn't mean that your approach to beating them should be different.

[phydaux]

Seems to me that a lot of readers want a NL "cookbook" - Raise this much, c-bet this much, fold when this happens.

If that's the case, then I think these readers will be much better off playing limit poker, where most hands go to a showdown and a cookie-cutter, cookbook approach is more likely to get the money.

But NL isn't like that. The cookbook approach doesn't work because there are too many variables.

So if Sonny & Matt write a book telling us what variables to watch and what adjustments to make as they change relative to each other, then it won't matter if the examples are 6-max, FR or a mix of both.

If we know what adjustments to make based on changing variables, then it won't matter what table we sit down at, since we'll be able to adjust our game to the current table conditions.

So I don't want a book on FR or on 6-max. I want a book on what to look out for, and how differant situations requior differant adjustments.

Make it happen, boys. Make it a good book, and charge what ever you want. If the book is good enough, we'll pay gobs of money for it. 'Cause we'll know we'll be able to make back ten gobs next month at the tables.

Hey Mason, as an aside, how much did Doyle charge for the first edition of Super/System, way back in the '70s?

Adjust that price for inflation, and maybe that's how much you should be charging for 2+2 books. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[ShivasIrons]

Any book that does not include significant discussion of 6 max play (and heads up for that matter) is not serving the online player fully. End of story. The authors of Professional No-Limit can put 8 billion hearts under every post that basically says "poker is poker whether 10, 6, or 2 players are dealt in," and it won't change that fact.

A player that grasps the concepts of limit play spelled out wonderfully by Ed Miller in SSH can certainly beat 6max play at most limits. However another player that in addition to SSH, reads, understands and applies the 6 max lessons from WITHG will have a nice edge on the former player. This has nothing to do with "cookbook" play.

If the authors don't grasp this than I suggest they don't tackle 6 max in volume II, and myself and others will await more enlightened authors that will. The vast majority of online play is short handed. Limit authors have grasped this and are rushing to fill the void in the poker literature that existed. It would be a shame if no-limit authors failed to do so.

[mrjetguy]

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If that's the case, then I think these readers will be much better off playing limit poker, where most hands go to a showdown and a cookie-cutter, cookbook approach is more likely to get the money.

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Yes a lot of hands go to showdown in limit, but I hope you realize that just because you can bet any amount NL is still very formulaic as well. It's the nature of any game with a limited number of options for what you can do. I'm not going to buy a book that doesn't tell me what the authors normally do in a certain situation. If that is a cookbook approach then so be it. Why the hell else would I buy a book but to learn how the author actually plays? The theory books already exist, more practical hands on style books (that are well written and from reliable sources) are what the majority of small-mid stakes NL players are really looking for at the moment. People want to learn what the different lines are that can be taken in a hand, when these lines work well and don't work well, and see them applied by the author.

[tagWAG]

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... If that is a cookbook approach then so be it. Why the hell else would I buy a book but to learn how the author actually plays? The theory books already exist, more practical hands on style books (that are well written and from reliable sources) are what the majority of small-mid stakes NL players are really looking for at the moment. People want to learn what the different lines are that can be taken in a hand, when these lines work well and don't work well, and see them applied by the author.

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True.

In the history of chess literature, guys like Reinfeld and Chernev wrote general theory guides, but these days if you want to play at the highest level, you need to know if 27. Kh1 is =/+. Fot that you need a cookbook.

To write a truly advanced poker book it needs to be both a theory guide and a line by line cook book. Books like TOP or prob this new book will be indispensable classics. But please don't tell us that we don't want cookbooks, or that cookbooks won't help us. We do, and they will.

[skillzilla]

a book focusing on 100bb stacks would be nice

[Matt Flynn]

Hi all,

We are striving above all to teach critical concepts needed for common situations. If you learn to solve "problems," such as when to c-bet or when to fire a second barrel, you become stronger. Imprecise stuff such as "with deep stacks, you can play more draw hands" won't work against tough opponents. Instead, we want readers to understand when and how a draw hand becomes profitable.

To play 6-max or any subset of no-limit well, you want to know which concepts count the most. In 6-max you'll end up fighting blind-vs-blind more and playing against wider ranges, so you must adapt. There are other differences. In the end, though, it's all adaptation of core concepts.

Based on feedback here, we'll put more 6-max examples in and will discuss adapting to 6-max.

Matt

[Jeff76]

Just wanted to chime in and say that I play full ring, though am comfortable with short handed play. There is just some sick part of me that enjoys taking advantage of the tighter players that seem to inhabit FR, at least at the small limits I play.

At any rate, I think certainly a discussion is warranted as to the differences between various games and why you might select one over the other; however, I hope that these books focus more on concepts that will apply in a wide variety of scenarios and how to determine when those concepts apply rather than a focused discussion limited to only what is in vogue at the moment.

Who knows how popular FR or 6max will be in a few years? Assuming we're still playing NL HE (and I'm sure it won't die, even if some other form of poker becomes dominant), surely the landscape is changing enough that to focus on one specific variant would doom any text to irrelevancy in a short time.