GTO does indeed "exist" for ring games.

In 2 ways:

1. In the tougher ring games, you will definitely be playing plenty of heads up poker against decent opponents, where your play will need to at least approach game-theory optimality. Now, you will sometimes have the opportunity to switch tables or switch games (which is often a good idea), but when you are in these games, Phil Newall maps out the way to improve your play.

2. Even in weaker ring games where you are obviously not going to be playing GTO, it's still important to understand what the adjustments you should be making are. In other words, understanding GTO play can improve your exploitative play model.

I think it's most clear to say that Nash equilibria certainly do exist in 3+ player games, but they're not necessarily as satisfying as solution concepts as in 2player games. Heads-up, if both guys are playing optimally, neither of them has any incentive to change their strategies. But, that's not necessarily the case in 3+ player games.

Anyhow I got the book on my Kindle last night, and I'm enjoying it so far. I have sort of a question though...

What do people think of this book's style as far as its approach to presenting theory? I imagine that Phil could have presented a lot of the theory with a lot more equations and such, and perhaps that would have been even more useful to the people who managed to slog through it (a la MoP, which I liked a lot but was a bit heavy on the algebra, imo).

When you read a poker book, do you want to learn the math behind things so that you can work out new situations on your own? Or do you prefer something that you can read through without taxing your brain so much? What are the trade-offs as you see them, and where is the sweet spot?

The math is in Bill Chens book. This gives some specific reccomendations based on that book in part, so all the math you want is in that book.

Not quite. If you want to apply MoP to a real poker game, unless you are much smarter than I am, you will end up making many assumptions and approximations. Phil Newhall's book is excellent but not having numbers, frequencies or equations can lead you to make quantitative mistakes when you try to apply it by doing something too often or too rarely for example.

HUH? The game hasnt been solved, So all you have is assumptions and approximations, but more importantly
solid concepts from those two books.

I just downloaded the digital version. it is can be viewed on Adobe Digital Editions easy enough, but having trouble viewing on Ipod.

i drag the book from ADE to Itunes succesfully, where the info tab states 12mb book file. when moved from Itunes to Ipod, the book title is listed in "Ibook" but all 432 of the pages are blank. bluefire is installed, but the book is not listed in there.

I believe it has to do with DRM protection. I had the same problem with another book not from 2p2. I guess you are stuck with reading it in Adobe digital editions.

Stay away from the Amazon mobi version of this for now - I had to return my copy because the hand charts were almost impossible to decipher, seemed to be cut and pasted from badly taken blurry photos.

I am not iOS savvy but I would try moving it from ADE to Bluefire on the Ipod. If the file registered on the ipod already from the first attempt, it may not work.

Is Itunes supporting Adobe DRM?

that did the trick. tyvm

I am having a similar problem with the Kindle version purchased from Amazon, although maybe not as bad. I'm going to attach a couple cropped screenshots from my Samsung Galaxy S3 for reference.

Hand chart:


Text:


Text from Elements of Poker for comparison:


It's strangely like TIPP was scanned in and OCRed somehow. Although the text does reflow when you change the font size, the imperfections in the letters remain. For example, look at the different ways the "I" is rendered in this sample.

The hand charts are readable for me, but they aren't easily readable--the shaded areas are hard to make out.

Overall the typography and layout of the Kindle version make it harder to read and detract from the book.

(I've just started reading it so I can't comment on the content yet.)

Finally found some time to read the book and I agree with the positive reviews. I was postponing it due to primarily being a NLH player, but it did add value despite the heavy emphasis on FLH.

Still was a bit disappointing by the check back discussion. It is nice to have a check back range, but Hawrilenko is folding about 60% vs a bet on the turn after checking back flop which is clearly exploitable by always bet strategy. I do not see how that is a balanced strategy. Furthermore, the more complex scenario of balancing a checking range OOP as PFR on any street is not addressed in any detail.

Also, donk betting is covered very superficially and it has to be discussed more in relation to weakening our checking range, as having a balanced donking, check-call, check-raise ranges is mind blowing task. It has to be addressed in a similar manner as the Nick Grudzien hand where he raises turn IP for free showdown with a medium hand, which is claimed to be bad due to taking away from our calling range and increasing our folding range too much.

Recommended book for any holdem players.

It is just a sample of hands so you wouldn't want to read too much into the frequencies especially when breaking the sample down by looking at various turn spots.

The other spots you mention like donk-betting and donk-checking are pretty uncommon plays in limit & there really wasn't enough to go on in this sample of hands to really analyze them. On the bright side they will be covered plenty here!

Looking forward to your new book, thanks for the update. Hope you improve on your solid first effort.

Hey phil,

I own a copy of this book (honest!), havent got around to reading it yet. I was wondering if you considered whether the intelligent poker player covers this discussion found in an old thread you posted in in-depth (if not I'll have to read the conversation then as well)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...pective-93249/

Bryce's post 61-63.

Cheers