The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition

[NickMPK]

I just received a review manuscript of "The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition". It is apparenly scheduled for release in June. I had never heard of this book receiving the review copy, but it looks interesting, and I thought I'd give you guys some of the details.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon.

This is not a review, since I have not read the book yet, just some info about it. I'll post some opinions in a couple days after I've had a chance to read it.


- The book is edited by Michael Craig; each chapter is written by a different "Full Tilt" pro.
- It is mostly geared toward Hold-em, but contains chapters on most of the other popular games.
- It is apparently entirely gearded toward tournaments, hence "Tournament Edition". I'm not sure whether this means there will also be a "Cash Game Edition". Strangely enough, there is a "Tournament Razz" chapter, but not specifically a HORSE or mixed-game chapter.
- It's a little over 400 pages long. A couple sections still appear to be incomplete in the review copy, so it might actually be slightly longer.

Here is the table of contents w/authors:

- Player Introduction (Phil Gordon)
- Editor's Introduction (Michael Craig)

- NLHE: How to Bet (Chris Ferguson)
- NLHE: The Theory of Leverage (Howard Lederer)
- NLHE: (Don't) Play Like Ted Forrest (hmmm....)
- NLHE: Play Before the Flop (Andy Bloch)
- NLHE: Play After the Flop (Ferguson)
- NLHE: Big Stack Play (Gavin Smith)
- NLHE: Short Stack Play (Gordon)
- NLHE: Online Tournament Strategy (Richard Brodie)
- Pot-Limit Hold 'Em (Rafe Furst and Bloch)
- Limit Hold 'Em (Lederer)

- Omaha Eight or Better (Mike Matusow)
- Pot-Limit Omaha (Ferguson)
- 7-Card Stud Hands (Keith Sexton)
- 7-Card Stud Strategy (David Grey)
- Stud Eight or Better (Forrest)
- Razz (Written as a dialogue b/w Forrest and Huck Seed)

- Roshambo (Furst)
- Appendix with bios of the authors (Craig)

[NickMPK]

Wow...pretty stunning apathy toward this book, considering how everyone goes apesh!t when the table of contents to a new 2+2 book is published.

[Aceshigh7]

Was hoping Juanda would have a chapter in there. I think he would have been better choice than Bloch or Gordon for the Before the Flop & Short Stack play chapters specifically.

The limit holdem section by Lederer should be really good. There is very little material currently available on limit holdem tournament strategy.

[BigBuffet]

I'll go to B&N on a rainy day and read the first half...

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]
Was hoping Juanda would have a chapter in there. I think he would have been better choice than Bloch or Gordon for the Before the Flop & Short Stack play chapters specifically.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know...I've haven't seen any evidence that Juanda can write. He doesn't even quite speak fluent English. Just being a good player doesn't make you a good teacher.

[curious123]

[ QUOTE ]

Wow...pretty stunning apathy toward this book, considering how everyone goes apesh!t when the table of contents to a new 2+2 book is published.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nick, let's hope it stays that way.

[Tom B]

This smells like a lot of ghost writing to me.

I personally have thoughts of the Doyle Brunson Internet Book oops I meant Doyle's Room advertisement book. I am hoping this is a good book and not merely hundreds of pages advertising Fulltilt.

[Bet-and-win88]

I think this might be as superficial as the "Tips from the pros", especially when Gordon wrights about Short Stack Play...

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]
This smells like a lot of ghost writing to me.

I personally have thoughts of the Doyle Brunson Internet Book oops I meant Doyle's Room advertisement book. I am hoping this is a good book and not merely hundreds of pages advertising Fulltilt.

[/ QUOTE ]

From skimming it, it looks like the level of "ghostwriting" varies from author to author. In particular, I would guess that the Ted Forrest stuff is more ghost-written than many others.

But the book is definitely not an advertisement for Full Tilt, which is a little bit surprising considering some of the other stuff they have been involved with. From what I can tell, the only chapters that even mention Full Tilt are the intro and the chapter on online SNGs (which uses the Full Tilt blind structure in its discussion). Except for this chapter, the book barely mentions online poker at all.

[maryfield48]

Michael Craig has written about this book many times in his blog. This was even before he moved to being FT's official blogger. I don't have URLs but I guess the blog is archived somewhere.