Review: A classic poker book for temporarily low stake players
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2014
This is not really a book about "crushing" low stakes poker, a more accurate title would be "harvesting the low-hanging fruit" in low stakes poker. This is not a criticism, the author needs a more dramatic title to sell books. But he makes his attitude clear. Early on, he advises readers to only select games with fish, and to unparticipate if good players join later. A player who can crush the game should at least hold his own versus good players, and would want to defend his hunting grounds when he finds a good game. But it's safer to go away and look for easier pickings. The book repeatedly advises folding hands with positive expectations, or checking when you are ahead, because you'll have better opportunities to make money later. He tells you how to exploit what the other players are doing, not how to bend them to your will.If you want to make consistent money at low stakes Sit 'n Gos (buy ins around $10), this book tells you how to do it. It's clear and authoritative, and the author is experienced. It goes into detail about software to use, bankroll management and other essential elements. It really is all you need (some of the elementary information is in appendices). It's short and easy to understand, even for a beginner.Nevertheless, I don't recommend this book if your goal is to make a few dollars per hour in on-line poker. A minor reason is game availability and edge potential in low stakes Sit 'n Gos has declined quite a bit since this book was written. The major reason is the book is too good for such an easy goal. It doesn't just tell you how to beat low stakes games, it teaches you why things work. This is extra work you don't need if you're never venturing out of low stakes. Moreover the reason people lose at low stakes poker is not that no one ever told them how to play better, it's either that they don't want to play better, or are not capable of playing better. If either of those two things are your problem, this book will not help. It's not a rah-rah halftime speech to inspire you, it's basic poker knowledge.I recommend this book for people who want to become successful poker players. Assuming you've mastered ABC poker, perhaps by playing with a good computer simulator, this is a good second step. If you can win consistently, you can play profitably. The longer you play, the more money you make and the better you get. Eventually you'll be good enough to move up in level. It's much harder to improve if you start at a higher stake level. For one thing, you will have to pay to learn instead of getting paid to learn. For another, you will be experiencing losing play, not winning play and at the beginning of your poker education learning how to win is more important than learning how to lose. But the most important reason is the game is simpler at low stakes so you can master it . At the top levels of poker, almost any decision is justifiable, because complex deception is necessary. But if you start trying to imitate top pros on television you'll miss all the fundamentals you need to play good poker.The key aspect that makes this a classic poker book is the author has managed to teach the basic concepts of a mid-stakes game in a logical way, while pointing out the parts you should discard at low stakes. For example, he gives a sound explanation of continuation bets, not just what they are but why you make them, and then explains why the reasons do not apply at low stakes except for made hands. He discusses the concepts in general, then illustrates them with hands. What this means is you are not just learning a mechanical system, making yourself into a poker bot, you are beginning the process of learning the game: starting simple, but doing it right. You won't learn any bad habits, but you'll learn enough to make practice both profitable and fun. It's kind of like when you get good enough at an instrument to play a recognizable song you enjoy, or good enough at a language to have a rudimentary conversation or understand a television soap opera; from that point on you can learn by doing because the skill is enjoyable to exercise. We all learn much faster and much better that way than we do by rote or cogitation.The people who will benefit from this book are the people who can learn. Learning is the secret, not memorizing lots of rules. If you have a reason for everything you do in poker, you soon notice if the reason was right or wrong. If right, you build on it. If wrong, you discard it. It may take a while, but you will get good. If you have no reason, even if you've started with all the right rules, you won't learn, because you can't tell if you were right or wrong. You'll have lots of bad beat stories, and the hands you boast about will be lucky misplays, but you'll never be a consistent winner.The people who can learn and have the ability to take advantage of this book are not going to stay in low stakes forever. Not in poker. Not in life.