Professional No-Limit Hold 'em Volume 1 Review Thread

[Matt Flynn]

jsbjoe and otter,

the book is not for professionals. read the OP.

matt

[dirty banana2007]

[ QUOTE ]
I confess that I did not read the whole book. I just couldn't continue.
I got to page 53 of Professional No Limit Hold'em, Volume One. I would (generously) estimate the TOTAL amount of substantive content through page 53 at one and a half pages. I have never before read a book, of any kind, on any subject, with less content 50 pages in.


I would be surprised if you have ever read a book all the way through that is larger than 50 pages.


In addition to the "content" itself, everything about the book is designed to add as many pages as possible. I'm talking about a typeface that's too large, line spacing (the spaces between the individual lines of type) that is so huge it actually makes the book harder to read, idiotic and unnecessarily huge card illustrations (a two plus two tradition), silly mathematical equations that take up a third of a page and which aren't necessary to make a point (were a point being made in the first place), an absolutely first grade chart (that occupies a third of a page) that says nothing more than how many big blinds a small and large stack are (and this has already been fully addressed in the text, to the tune at least a page of filler), filler pages that "introduce" each "section" of the book, (the book is replete with hyperbolic prose that promises the reader everything that the book is about to, but does not, deliver).

the layout reminds me of the Harrington series, did you not like those either?


A godawful book that severely insults the reader. I am taking all wagers on whether Two Plus Two releases a "Volume Two" to Professional No Limit Holdem. My money's on the under.

Cool!! ....easy money , [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

if you make wagers as bad as these, i am surprised you have money to play poker [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

[jsbjoe]

Matt,

1. A book entitled Professional No Limit Holdem, Volume One SHOULD be geared towards professionals. Otherwise the title is, obviously, a tad misleading. I don't think it's fair to expect your average Amazon purchaser to comb two plus two before purchasing the book.

2. Please address my comments concerning the tremendous quantities of fluff and filler in your book. Would you let us all know what discussions took place before publication? Surely, with three authors, there must have been SOME discussion about whether the lack of content was taken too far.

3. Please address the Amazon "review" controversy. I went to Amazon and looked at the reviews, most of which were submitted before it was possible to read the book. These fake glowing "reviews" are just totally shocking. Really sad.

For what it's worth, I am just a poker player. I do not know any of the authors or the publisher. I just hope that a FIASCO like this is not repeated at 2 plus 2.

[Matt Flynn]

jsbjoe,

the subtitle "Learn to think and play like the pros" was deleted during development of the cover. you can search for the cover design thread if you wish and see for yourself. if you cannot or will not accept that a book called PNL could be geared towards teaching players to become pros, then there will be no appeasing you.

the beginning of the book is titled Basics and Fundamentals. that is how i was taught when i started. it was immensely helpful. the fact that you understand it does not make it fluff. we explicitly state in the intro that experienced players can skip it.

i have no clue who half of the early reviewers on Amazon are. some of the rest reviewed the manuscript prior to publication: Tommy Angelo, Greg Soare, felson and certainly knew what was in the book. those are their honest opinions, zero guidance from me. others reveiwed the book in this thread and then there, two at my request: "Hey thanks for the review would you mind posting something on Amazon?" unlike you, they read more than 50 pages of the book.

matt

[Mason Malmuth]

You obviously have a few problems. First off, you should be more specific oin your comments and then I'm sure the authors who are participating here,and have been very generous with their time and effort, will attempt to address your complaints.

[ QUOTE ]
Please address the Amazon "review" controversy. I went to Amazon and looked at the reviews, most of which were submitted before it was possible to read the book. These fake glowing "reviews" are just totally shocking. Really sad.

For what it's worth, I am just a poker player. I do not know any of the authors or the publisher. I just hope that a FIASCO like this is not repeated at 2 plus 2.

[/ QUOTE ]

Two Plus Two does not put up reviews on Amazon nor do we encourage anyone to put up reviews one way or another. However, we have no control over what an individual may do on their own.

But specifically concerning the reviews of this book on Amazon, we did request, and Amazon complied, that one of the five-star reviews be removed because we felt that it was causing controversy and taking away from the debate of the content of the book.

And finally, your statement of a fiasco concerning this book is totally without regard for its content and the way we operate. The material in the book is very dense with virtually no fluff, as is our style and what we require from our authors, and there are numerous hand examples.

You are constatly accusing posters/reviewers here and on Amazon of not reading this book. I suspect that you may be guilty of this yourself since I doubt that you can find hardly anyone who has read the book and who will agree with your statements concerning "tremendous quantities of fluff and filler"

MM

[Mason Malmuth]

[ QUOTE ]
In addition to the "content" itself, everything about the book is designed to add as many pages as possible. I'm talking about a typeface that's too large, line spacing (the spaces between the individual lines of type) that is so huge it actually makes the book harder to read, idiotic and unnecessarily huge card illustrations (a two plus two tradition), silly mathematical equations that take up a third of a page and which aren't necessary to make a point (were a point being made in the first place), an absolutely first grade chart (that occupies a third of a page) that says nothing more than how many big blinds a small and large stack are (and this has already been fully addressed in the text, to the tune at least a page of filler), filler pages that "introduce" each "section" of the book, (the book is replete with hyperbolic prose that promises the reader everything that the book is about to, but does not, deliver).


[/ QUOTE ]

We use Times New Roman print with a point-size of 11.5. That's actually a smaller print size than what's in almost all other poker books. But we use this print size because over the years we gradually concluded that this was the right size to use. In other posts, you have praised the Harrington on Hold 'em books. They are type set to the exact same standards.

The line spacing between the lines is the standard setting which our word processing program automatically generates. It is the exact same spacing used in all our books.

As for card pictures, we add these mainly to break up the monotony of continued text. We have been doing this for almost twenty years and think we do this pretty well.

As for filler pages that introduce each section of the book, this is again Two Plus Two style and we do it in almost all of our books.

MM

[jsbjoe]

Mason,

Your points are all well taken, and I agree with them. As I have stated in at least a couple of prior posts (some of which are unrelated to PNL), a great number of your books are excellent. Tops in the field no less.

To my eye, the typeface in PNL does appear a bit larger than in other books -- in any event the line spacing certainly is. I know this because I bought more than one of your books when I bought PNL, and I compared them. I only went to this effort because I was astounded by the complete lack of content in PNL.

As I have already stated, I did not complete the book. But from what I have gleaned here, following the "introductory" sections, a prime focus of the book is a thorough (tongue firmly placed in cheek) exposition on the concept of stack size as compared to pot size [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'm certainly not saying this is a meaningless concept. So for example, is ante, or blind. But compare this level of analysis with that of a Harrington book, or the Stoxtrader book ..

Or many other books. PNL seems to occupy a space all by itself (with respect to insubstantialness), and I am very confident that this book is not going to stand up to the test of time.

With respect to the Amazon reviews, it was a good idea to remove his wife's review. But it does not take much discernment (especially after reading even a portion of PNL) to recognize the "reviews" for the phoney hooey they are.

[Mason Malmuth]

[ QUOTE ]
To my eye, the typeface in PNL does appear a bit larger than in other books -- in any event the line spacing certainly is.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's the exact same typeface and the exact same line spacing. However, it does appear that the equations are slightly larger than they are suppose to be. That may be a difficulty that we sometimes have with the equation editor due to the fact that it changes typeface. But there are only 11 equations in the book, which is not a large number.


[ QUOTE ]
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.

[ QUOTE ]
With respect to the Amazon reviews, it was a good idea to remove his wife's review. But it does not take much discernment (especially after reading even a portion of PNL) to recognize the "reviews" for the phoney hooey they are.

[/ QUOTE ]

That may be the case, and I do agree that those reviews got up there very quickly, but we at Two Plus Two had nothing to do with that and I don't appreciate your statements on both here and Amazon claiming that we did.

MM

[jsbjoe]

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]

[jsbjoe]

For the record I have made no assertion that either you personally or Two plus Two had anything to do with the Amazon "reviews." I'm very confident that you didn't. Maybe they bothered you much as they did me (I'm not asking for any statement here)...