Professional No-Limit Hold 'em Volume 1 Review Thread

[Sunny Mehta]

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If you do agree with this statement about the importance of how the money goes in (across all three streets versus all on the flop), I think I am missing something in the earlier section about being committed on the flop and therefore willing to get it in as fast as possible.

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Hi JLD,

I very much agree with your general point. Remember, we do have sections in the Adjustments part of SPR where we talk about how "changes in [postflop] betting patterns plays a huge role in no-limit and can change your commitment decision." (pg.244) We also have examples throughout the book that hit on this idea, and we also at several points talk about the idea of "conditional commitment."

A lot of people have asked about this same topic. And while we mention it throughout the book, we do spend more time on the preflop aspect - NOT because we don't think the postflop aspect is more important, but moreso because we only had so much room in Volume One, and we needed to explain all the fundamental principles of SPR first, so we decided to organize it such that a lot of the postflop elaboration on SPR will be in Volume Two.

Also, from your post I can tell that you understand the general concepts well, so don't get hung up on how one example might differ from another in its advice. Poker is a very situational game, and we purposely tried to give as many sides to the story as we could.

To address your specific question, think of "get it in as fast as possible" as being like "get it in as fast as is most profitable."

Thanks a lot for your close read and comments.

-Sunny

[Sunny Mehta]

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The R in REM
As you mention in your book, one of the biggest differences between professionals and amateur poker players is hand reading and I think this is due to the professionals’ greater experience of playing many more hands (as well as thinking about those hands critically). I think there are certain betting patterns which are obviously strong or weak to the experienced poker player that escape the amateur’s attention. While you mention a couple of these in your book (a very passive player significantly overbetting the pot is holding a strong hand, a typical low stakes player (i.e. not very aggressive) checkraising on the turn usually has two pair or better), I think a fuller treatment of this in your next book would be very helpful in improving our ability to accurately estimate an opponent’s range. While I have not seen a very good treatment of this in any book, Ed recently had two articles on his site talking about pre-flop and post-flop betting patterns which indicated the strength of someone’s hand which were the best I had seen in this regard. I think a section on hand reading which discussed common betting patterns and opponent type-specific betting patterns would be very helpful in improving people’s estimation of opponent’s hand ranges.

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Thanks for the comment - we plan on including a lot more "range discussion" and examples in Volume Two.

-S

[Sunny Mehta]

Great posts JLD. Again, you are absolutely correct in how you are applying SPR re: Top pair in online games. We have discussed this a lot in some recent threads (check out my posts in the SSNL thread that's linked earlier in this thread).

But to summarize, when you say this:

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I still think it is the better play to raise with AQo even with a beginning stack of 100BBs

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you are really saying that it's better WHEN you are playing in games where you have one more of the following: position, great steal equity, opponents who are fairly easy to read, opponents who are fairly passive, opponents who don't make your life miserable by constantly putting you to the test when you have top pair in an awkward pot size, etc.

Yes, in a lot of online games (particularly the low-stakes ones) with 100bb stacks it's often better to just suck it up with the top-pair hands and deal with the sometimes awkward SPRs for those hands because you are making so much from stealing, playing your position, reading your weak opponents, controlling the pot, making correct range decisions and laydowns, etc.

Just remember that that's not true for all game conditions / opponent types. And either way, it's always helpful to keep gauge of your stack-to-pot ratios when making whatever decisions you are going to make.

-S

[Sunny Mehta]

hi gmcarroll33,

remember that only the smaller stack matters between you and whichever opponent. check out page 32 for more refreshers on that.

-S

[Jzo19]

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??? im still confused , so SPR is almost useless in shorthanded 100bb games ..since we're rarely going to hit our target SPR's with TP/ overpair hands ...seems like i wasted my money on this book ...hopefully its not 2 late and i can get a refund...

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keep in mind you also miss flops, play chicken when everyone misses, play pocket pairs that don't typically flop overpairs, play connectors, one-gappers, suited aces, etc.

top pair hands don't work well in 100bb stack games, but there are plenty of strong uses for SPR thinking in 100bb games.

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let me get this right , what PNL advocates that in 100bb online games (assuming every1 at the table has a full stack) we should be playing "small ball" because TP hands dont work well with SPR's and such .am i rite?

[Sunny Mehta]

PNL doesn't necessarily advocate any ONE particular way, other than making the best decision based on your opponents' ranges and tendencies. You can play "small ball", you can play "steal ball", you can play "min-raise or limp-re-raise a lot and be a pain in the ass ball", etc.

All depends on the specifics.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[facepull]

there is no such thing as small ball in your average 1-2 brick and mortar game. i say that you should think you are playing 2-5 and raise accordingly. so now a standard raise is 15. in most games a min raise to 4 gets called by 7 players.a raise to 3bb gets called by 5 players.

[daxtrader]

Any idea if PokerStars will carry this book? Can someone with connections suggest it to them? The SNG book would also be nice to get with FPP's.

[phydaux]

OK, good news. I got assigned 16 hours of overtime this week.

I won't be spending much time with my wife, or playing much poker this week, but I can have all the junior people in my department do all the work while I hide in my office and read PNL.

In fact, I just cracked out another 40 pages. So far I've finished The Basics, The Fundamentals and The REM Process.

My favorite sections so far have, without a doubt, been Fundamentals in Practice and REM in Action.

Fundamentals in Practice lays out a solid, ABC style of play based on "Level One" thinking. To be honest, this is the style I most often practice when I'm playing and it's the style most weak opponents will have.

REM in Action, however, takes the reader past ABC and into "Level Two" thinking. This is the style that's so easy for me when I'm replying to a hand posted in the strat forums, or when I'm reviewing someone elses play during the monthly session reviews. I'm Daniel FREAKIN' Negreanu then. But at the table, when it's my money on the line, I struggle to estimate range, calculate pot equity and decide how to maximise my hand.

Or rather, I struggle to follow through with my reads and put my chips on the line.

With the REM process Matt & Sunny have outlined an excelent three step process for thinking through difficult NL situations.

As a uNL player, where straight forward ABC play is the style that gets the money, the first 95 pages covering Basics & Fundamentals were well worth the price of the book. I am confident that the REM precess with have me regularly using "Level Two" thinking and take me out of uNL and into the low limits.

And that I am less than half way through the book leaves me excited and looking forward to reading more.

I have already posted my famous "Refreshingly Readable" mini-review in another thread. I would also like to agree with a previous poster that keeping the main body of the text uncluttered by putting all the "ifs, ands and buts" in the footnotes was an ingenious touch. I attribute the book's smooth readability to Ed's editing.

Well done boys, well done. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[jeffnc]

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My question is, is this book the mind blowing book that made you say, "wow!!", and make you a professional level player as it promised? Or Not?? In other words can you take this knowledge and use it to turn pro as it was touted to be????? Let me know , thanks

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I think the way to think about it is this. Reading a book cannot turn you into a pro. But having said that, if you don't understand the concepts in this book, you probably cannot be a successful pro. In other words, you have to know at least what's in this book, and you probably need to know more. But there are probably few if any pros that don't understand this stuff very well, at least intuitively.