Full Tilt book

[xxGreat1xx]

1. For those of you who have read it what do you think about it?

2. In Chris Ferguson's section on NL holdem what do you think about his "never call" strategy? Has anyone tried this with any success in online tournaments or do any great tournament players play similar to this style?

3. On the same note as #2, when you re-raise someone before the flop instead of calling do you just make the min raise or what? It's not specified in the book

[ChicagoPoker]

I have the book and honestly I'm not that impressed. In fact I put it down in the middle of Ferguson's preflop section and went back to re-reading HOH2.

It's not that those guys don't have a lot of knowledge, they do. But they are TERRIBLE writers. You can really appreciate what Bill Robertie brings to the table once you read the Full Tilt book.

I'm going to finish it (in sections of course). But its not the same calibur as the HOH series.

[Skleice]

I like the beginning few chapters by Lederer, Ferguson, and Forrest especially. But, reading Andy Bloch's section on preflop play made me want to begin drinking heavily. It was so dry and boring and sterile. I'm not saying the info isn't good, he's obviously very smart, but it's such a mechanical way to think about an organic game. I got so tired of it that I stopped reading it and it's on the shelf for another day. There's a really long thread about this in this forum already.

[binions]

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1. For those of you who have read it what do you think about it?

2. In Chris Ferguson's section on NL holdem what do you think about his "never call" strategy? Has anyone tried this with any success in online tournaments or do any great tournament players play similar to this style?

3. On the same note as #2, when you re-raise someone before the flop instead of calling do you just make the min raise or what? It's not specified in the book

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1. If you can get past the different writing styles (some of which is poor) and focus on the concepts, the live NL hold'em tournament sections are excellent (chapters by Lederer, Ferguson, Bloch, Forrest and Smith).

2. I don't think anyone plays the "strict" version of raise or fold where you literally never call. It would be a beginner strategy. While Ferguson used it in 1999, he doesn't use it today, and I don't think it would be as successful today in the computer age of pokerstove, etc. compared to 1999 when play was generally tighter.

3. Generally, you minre-raise when you want action, like with AA or maybe KK. Of course, against some foes, reverse psychology works when they fold to your minraise but call when they think you are trying to buy the pot. Against these "thinking" foes, raise big with AA-KK and minraise 72o.

Generally, however, if you raise to an amount = 3.5x the initial raise, you have raised the size of the pot and are giving the foe 2:1 immediate pot odds. Example: 15-30 blinds and foe makes it 100 to go. If you make it 350 straight, there will be 495 in the pot, and it is 250 for him to call. 495:250 = ~2:1. Thus, 3x-4x initial raise is a standard range for a reraise.

[Jeff76]

I have it on the basis of some great reviews here, but I don't care for it much from what I've read. I'm only about 5 chapters in, but so far I either disagree with a LOT of what the authors say or it's stuff that I think is pretty obvious.

For instance, the first Ted Forrest chapter got a lot of rave reviews, but to me it wasn't anything earth shattering. But a lot of the PF stuff by Bloc and Ferguson I just flat out disagree with. Bloc supports a lot of his ideas with math using "hot and cold" values of hands, and this is ridiculous to me. He advises you to call raises with the top half of the hands you'd raise with on the logic that you'll be doing better against an opponents range; however, that's not good logic. We want to play hands that do well against villain's range in post flop play, not necessarily hands that run better hot and cold. 22 runs TERRIBLY against AA hot and cold, but it plays after the flop very well against it. Rather than playing the "top half of your range", you should be playing hands that play well against villain's raising range.

I do give high marks for the chapter on "leverage", though I think the example with Phil Ivey is LOL and the application isn't necessarily correct for deep stack situations (in other words, when there is enough behind that there is no real threat of an all in, you are not really playing a leveraged flop). Still, since most tournaments are played in small stack situations the majority of the time, the concept of leverage is a good one to note and keep in mind.

I plan to finish reading and give a full review, especially since every one else seemed to like it so much, but based on the first couple of chapters I give it a c-.

[helter skelter]

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I plan to finish reading and give a full review, especially since every one else seemed to like it so much, but based on the first couple of chapters I give it a c-.

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Have you reviewed this yet? I'm playing mostly low buy-in online tourneys and didn't know whether this book would help me or not.

[SGspecial]

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I plan to finish reading and give a full review, especially since every one else seemed to like it so much, but based on the first couple of chapters I give it a c-.

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Have you reviewed this yet? I'm playing mostly low buy-in online tourneys and didn't know whether this book would help me or not.

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I think this book was written for you then. In most games I am low buy-in caliber and I found it very good for NLHE, Omaha, and stud/8. Razz I am picky about (obv) and the stud sections were pretty lame, but overall a worthwhile book. The nice thing about the NLHE stuff is with so many differing styles you can look at the Bloch stuff and say "no way" and play like Jesus instead if that suits you better.

[jeffnc]

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Bloc supports a lot of his ideas with math using "hot and cold" values of hands, and this is ridiculous to me.

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I haven't read the book, but I agree with you just in general.

[fraac]

I've only read a couple of chapters. I liked Chris Ferguson's betsizing one, it disagrees with (improves upon, imo) Harrington. The chapters not on nl holdem must be good almost by default.

[OMFGWTF]

Gavin Smith knows how to write?