Quote:
Originally Posted by True North
Pretty sure he meant four outfielders and no infielders. If I'm being leveled, oh well.
No, that's not what he meant. He bungled the analogy so much that one can't help but crack up while reading it. Here is the entire quote, in all its glory:
Quote:
It is like playing baseball with only four outfielders. Singles turn into doubles, doubles turn into triples, and bunting might be a very effective weapon because of the lack of defenders.
As a diehard Red Sox fan, I can assure you there isn't a single thing in that analogy that makes any sense whatsoever. For starters, bunting has nothing to do with the outfielders. As for the other parts, the total opposite would be true. Four outfielders would turn triples into doubles, doubles into singles, and singles into outs. I'm pretty certain he meant to say two outfielders, but even then, the bunting part wouldn't make any sense. Not to mention baseball teams play with three outfielders ... so "only four outfielders" is laughable in and of itself. Oh well. It gave me a laugh, that's for sure.
Anyways, I finally finished the book and I really enjoyed it. The main thing I took out of it was strategy when playing out of the blinds. He really goes against the grain here. While most tell you to play cautiously and conservatively out of the blinds, Gus basically says to throw all of that out the window. His blind strategies include:
- Defending your blind with any decent hand, mostly because of the great pot odds
- Playing back against late position raisers when they seem relatively weak (nothing new, but he does emphasize it)
- He absolutely HATES the commonly accepted mantra of "checking to the raiser." If Gus hits any part of the flop, he's leading out. I'm talking bottom pair on a dry board, a gutshot with two overs .. basically anything.
I've incorporated this blind strategy into my game with very good results so far (albeit with an extremely small sample size.) Blind strategy is certainly the biggest thing I personally have taken from this book. I definitely recommend it regardless. It's unlike anything else out there and comes from a player whose results speak for themselves. The format gets repetitive and somewhat boring, but his hand analysis is fantastic. You gotta love Gus' sense of humor as well. Where else can you read gems like, "No reason to slowplay my pair of Treys" (with 23s on a 843 rainbow flop) and "I call in my BB with the suited eight gapper."
It's definitely not a beginner's book, as they probably won't take anything meaningful from it, but it is one that intermediate and advanced players should not go without reading.
Last edited by dividius; 05-12-2008 at 12:53 AM.
Reason: spelling and clarity