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Power Hold'em Strategy
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I received my book about three weeks ago; the invoice showed I had ordered it on March 3, 2006. It is difficult to give an unbiased review after 6 or 7 delays over the last two years but I will try. The publisher has still not updated the description page they created when the book was first being marketed; the original book was to cover limit, pot limit and no limit for tournament and cash games. This book covers only no limit and adds online no limit cash and tournament games. Several of the original authors did not make it into this book. Also, Evelyn Ng is not one of the greatest stars in the game in my opinion although she is somewhat well recognized.If Daniel Negreanu's contribution had been a stand alone book I might have given it a 5; unfortunately after making many promises and marketing the book so aggressively two years ago I think he was obligated to keep it a multi author book which is partially why I ended up with a three rating overall.First issue I have with the book is the heavy hand of the publisher, none other than Avery Cardoza. It seems there is an ongoing feud with Cardoza Publishing and 2+2 Publishing and Avery Cardoza is arrogant, audacious and downright rude in the preface which immediately made me question his integrity and the book's integrity. To call this one of the top poker books ever written will be decided in the court of public opinion and by those who know poker not by Avery Cardoza. He should keep his personal issues personal and not taint Negreanu's book with unneccesary garbage.Evelyn Ng's contribution appears to me to be written mostly by Negreanu; I have read Negreanu's writing for many years and it seems to be his voice. Not a hugely useful chapter and not very original as the main approach is strikingly similar to "The System" put forth in Sklansky's tournament book several years ago and expounded on in "Kill Phil". Primarily a beginner approach to no limit tournaments.Todd Brunson's contribution is very short in several ways. More advice than strategy and not nearly as thorough as his chapter on high low split in "Super System 2" which I thought was outstanding. It covers high limit cash games which seems to juxtapose the previous "beginner" approach in Ng's chapter. Sequence is important in this type of book and Brunson's chapter seemed out of place as well as my other comments.Eric Lindgren is also more advice than strategy and covers online no limit holdem. A few ideas to use but again put this into the preface's promises by Cardoza about this being one of the top poker books written.Paul Wasicka's chapter is short-handed online no limit is short on content also. Only 25 pages and again with its brevity it creates many unanswered question that you will have to search for elsewhere. No limit holdem becomes more complex shorthanded and this brief chapter falls short.David William's chapter "Mixing it Up" is actually fairly decent but it is an approach and style that lends itself to seriousness variance and is for fearless and skilled players who must still navigate the inevitable traps this approach creates. It is actually complimentary to the small ball approach that Negreanu teaches.The meat of the book is Negreanu's "Small Ball" which many top winning tournament players have been using with great success. This style is similar to Gus Hansen's style which likes to see many flops, keep the pots small, make good reads and exploit your opponents with hand ranges and position. It's not an easy style to play successfully and requires many intricate and finesse type plays that might be challenging to learn from a book. I do feel though that it is a thorough and solid treatment of his style. Thinking through a hand in reverse takes some work and focus and implenting plays based on good reads takes hundreds if not thousands of hours of playing. I have always liked Negreanu's writing style and approach to poker and would buy the book for just his chapter. Too bad he didn't write the whole book; it lost points on the other chapters not on his.All things considered, I was a little disappointed with this book. I was hoping it would focus on Negreanu's unique style of poker and that it would present ideas not yet covered by the other great poker books (like the Harrington series of books on tournaments and cash games). But it's a 485 page book and Negreanu doesn't even pen a word of it until the last 200 pages. There are 5 chapters before Negreanu's, each written by a different pro: Evelyn Ng, Todd Brunson, Erick Lindgren, Paul Wasicka, & David Williams. Ng's chapter presented an interesting strategy for beginners that made a lot of sense to me and that I hadn't heard of before, which was good. But the other 4 chapters by the pros were a waste of time. Brunson, Lindgren, Wasicka, & Williams all wrote about very basic concepts that I'd heard of a million times before.Brunson's chapter was on cash games, but he didn't even scratch the surface of cash game strategy in the way that Harrington on Cash Games did. He spent an entire chapter talking about re-buying, not bluffing, & trap hands.Lindgren's chapter was about online play. The major flaw with that chapter was that it was written for players that cut their teeth playing in casinos and are now moving online. In reality, I think most of us start online and work our way towards casinos if we succeed online, so the whole chapter felt "backwards". He provided a little more actual in-game strategy than Brunson, but not much.Wasicka's chapter was about short-handed tables. Outside of Ng's chapter I found this chapter the most useful. Wasicka presented some ideas which were new to me and even the ones that weren't new were at least logical and presented well.Williams' chapter could have been written in 1 sentence: "Mix up your play so your opponent can't read what you've got." It's the first rule of poker to not let yourself fall into the trap of being predictable and Williams some how rambled on about this for a whole chapter.With all that being said, Daniel's chapter was great and I thought it was good enough to stand on its own. About 200 pages in length, he describes in depth his small-ball strategy, the math that makes it work, and how to master it. He guides the reader through starting hand selection and position all the way thru flop, turn, & river play, making lots of easy to understand analogies along the way. Although I think the rest of the poker world as caught on to Daniel's methods since his immense success in 2003 & 2004, this strategy is a useful weapon for any poker player to have in his arsenal. Daniel's strategy, when properly employed, should allow the reader to pick up lots of uncontested pots and should keep pots small unless the reader has a big hand.Taken on a chapter by chapter basis, I'd give the following ratings:Ng: 4 starsBrunson: 1 starLindgren: 2 starsWasicka: 3 starsWilliams: 1 starNegreanu: 5 starsBut as a whole, with all the fluff in there, I'd give the whole book just 2 stars.I pre-ordered this a long, long time ago and had almost given up on it when I got the the email that it was being shipped.The funny thing about this is that the most important thing I learned from this book wasn't in the book at all..First of all: this really isn't a book for beginners. There is a chapter by Evelyn Ng that lays out a strategy for beginners, but that's not the main thrust of the book. This is about power tournament no limit poker and it's the absolute best book I've read yet.The problem with many other poker books is that you sometimes can't tell what game they are talking about: pot limit, limit, cash games? The strategies for all of those are much, much different than those for tournament NL so the lessons learned can be very harmful. Daniel makes it very clear what he is talking about.Here's another thing: most poker books aren't really written well. The authors aren't writers, and it shows. Daniel Negreanu writes very, very well and that makes a big difference. I really appreciated that.There are several other chapters by important players: Brunsen, Lindgren, Ng, Williams and Wasicka all contributed material. Frankly, they could have left all of that out and I would have been just as happy. I don't mean that those are bad chapters, but for me the meat of this book is Daniel's.So what's that most important thing I learned here? Simply, that I was right.That is, over the few years that I've been playing, I have slowly come to the same place that Daniel outlines: "small ball" is the path to winning tourneys. But every time I'd express any opinion along those lines, the old-style Doyle Brunsen high-aggression players would insist that I was wrong. Well, if I'm wrong, so is Daniel and I don't think many are in a position where they have any claim to question his play.Not that I'm in Daniel's league, of course. But so much of what he said caused me to say "Yeah!" and feel vindicated and of course the rest helped me refine and improve the things I have been thinking about.Of course the thing about poker is that if "everyone" started playing small ball, the old style Doyle Brunsen aggression would once again be the best play. You always have to remember that primarily you have to "play the player" and be ready to switch your style as circumstances dictate. However, right now a lot of the lesser wannabees still know nothing about small ball so the few that really apply these lessons will benefit greatly.I feel a little funny recommending this book. If everyone I play with read it, I might not do as well as I do. Well, unless they all took this as cookie cutter recipes (something Daniel warns against, by the way). The big lesson here is that good poker is smart poker - that it's not about "always do this if that", but only about looking for (and creating) opportunity. I'm not a great poker player. I've only been playing NLHE a few years and may never get beyond mediocre, but if I ever do, I know that Daniel's book will have had a lot to do with it.With the game growing so rapidly, there is always a need to get that edge on your opponents. Daniel is a master at his craft, teaching the lethal low ball strategy. I play online, home games, and casino. This book caters to all with sections on online, deep stacks, short stacks, high stakes, low stakes, on and on... it has it all. In my mind, this book is better than Super System I and II. A real must have for any serious poker player!!!
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