Awesome, just bought the ebook. Looking forward to reading it.

I just tried the coupon code for digital version and it did not work. I have already ordered hard copy though. Are those still expected to ship tomorrow?

Thanks!

I reloaded the discount and it appears to be working. Anyone that places an order and the discount does not get applied can email or pm me and I'll refund the discount amount.

yeah cover is perfect imo

Hi, I want a kindle version not ADE it's absolutely terrible and a pain in the ass. Who likes reading books from the computer screen. When is the kindle version coming out? Thanks

My best guess is 10 days.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Everyone:

We now have printed books and we'll start shipping them out later today.

Best wishes,
Mason

pls keep us posted

thanks

I'm a possible buyer, but I have a question: Is this going to be of any help to a 6max cash game player willing to jump into tougher games? (or even getting a better win rate at the micros)

In short, yes.

Why?

If only they added something to the title along the lines of "Emphasis On Tough Games" to make it clear. Now that would've been great.

seems like you're jumping to some irrational conclusions in regards to libratus's play

Matthew, I realize that this book is probably primarily applicable to tough online games. Could you give me an opinion on how, myself, as a 2/5 live player who plays in games that have a very wide range of player types and abilities might benefit from the book.

Thanks

Good question and I'm going to write a pretty long response to this as I think it will be helpful to others later.

First off, note it's REALLY hard to assess your own work, so it's hard for me to have a good sense of who benefits most from the book until more people review it.

But my best guess would be Applications was an advanced book for its time that probably had a fair amount of new material to offer even (very) advanced players. That book took a ton of time and energy to write and required a lot of modeling and guesswork which had to be done since solvers/AI wasn't readily available to answer tough questions. A good example of this is I remember recommending only continuation betting about 40% of the time in certain CO vs button situations. When the book was published, I remember getting a lot of comments and PMs about how low that CB was, since even many huge winners were continuation betting about 70%+ of the time in that spot. But several years later, it looks like even the 40% continuation bet is too high, so Applications got us a lot closer to what's likely theoretically correct and had the opportunity to make even very good players think and reexamine their strategy. I think there are several examples of this in that book, especially regarding OOP play and bet sizing.

So, Applications involved me taking a ton of risks, putting in a ton of effort, and basically intentionally biting off more than I could chew. I've been lucky that most players have been very forgiving of the stuff that's wrong or inaccurate in the book, as they understand the logic behind why I thought what I did and the limitations of trying to figure this stuff out when I was working on it several years ago. So the result of this was Applications had a lot of stuff that was quite advanced for its time, but it also got a fair amount of it wrong. Already very good players for the most part have been fine with this, as they can learn new things from the advanced concepts and when something is wrong usually identify why it's wrong, shrug it off and go "meh, Janda was wrong on this one," and not allow it to develop new leaks in their game. But for newer players, there is a bigger risk of developing leaks in your game with reading Applications, as you may misunderstand a concept that's explained correctly without you realizing it (the "minimum defense frequency" is a common one) and there are just some sections that time has shown to be highly inaccurate in not just plain wrong (the pre-flop section is the first section that comes to mind).

With "No Limit Hold-Em for Advanced Players: Emphasis on Tough Games" I think there is less completely new and challenging material than their was in Applications. Honestly, I think arguably the two most advanced books for their time were The Mathematics of Poker and The Theory of Poker (and I'm possibly missing some others as well, such as SuperSystems) and I don't even know if a new poker book can really be all that groundbreaking anymore. If it can, my guess is at least likely can't be as groundbreaking as the aforementioned books were. People are just already too good, concepts are already too well understood by the top players (many of whom make poker training videos or have their own training sites), and software is just too powerful (much more in depth and precise than a book can ever be).

So what's the point of "No Limit Hold-Em for Advanced Players: Emphasis on Tough Games" then? Basically, to explain concepts really, really well. This is something no current software can come close to doing, and many if not most of the concepts in this book weren't well understood in the past as solid NLHE of today looks a lot different from solid NLHE of 20 years ago. Additionally, because poker is so much more well understood now than it was 6 years ago (when I started writing Applications), I believe there will be fewer mistakes or poorly explained concepts in this one that are significant enough to potentially cause you to develop leaks in your game.

So, I still think for the overwhelming majority of readers, No Limit Hold-Em for Advanced Players: Emphasis on Tough Games is going to introduce them to new concepts and shed light on conceptual misunderstandings they currently have. I put a ton of work into this and spent a lot of time working with other players and tinkering with PokerSnowie and PioSOLVER to help me figure out concepts even I was confused about or didn't understand very well before writing the book. But is it going to introduce as many new concepts to advanced players as Applications did? Probably not, because as I mentioned I'm not even sure that's possible for a book to do anymore (and if it is I'm not capable of writing it).

The net result of all this is I think the new book will be more valuable to the online NL$25-NL$100 players, live players, and tournament players than Applications was (at the time it came out), whereas Applications was probably more valuable to the online NL$400+ cash player. I of course still think and hope NL$200+ online cash game players will enjoy and benefit from the new book, but even for those players who do enjoy reading books and watching videos I think realistically software is probably going to be the most powerful self-study tool at their disposal. But for the other guys (including NL$500 live players like yourself), I think/hope you'll find this book greatly beneficial as it was specifically designed to help players like you.

If you do end up buying the book please either post your thoughts or shoot me a PM. It'd be interesting to know your thoughts as well as how accurate you think my assessment is.

Really like the sound of this. Looking forward to the book making it's way accross the pond

For those of us in the UK - what will be the quickest method of ordering - straight from the publisher or wait for amazon to stock?

Received my copy today. Flipping through it, I don't see a lot of hand examples in it like Matthew's first book. Should be easier, or at least faster, to digest than the first. The process begins . . . .

I've had *Applications* sitting on my desk for awhile waiting for when I am ready to tackle it. Should I skip it and read the new book instead?

I noticed Amazon doesn't have it even on its list, is that normal? I mean, I'd like to know whether I should expect some delay from Amazon.

HI General:

Amazon won't show books in stock until they receive them from us. The books have been shipped and they should have them in a couple of days.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hey Mason, ty for the quick reply.
Looking forward to the book then

Applications contains a lot of content that isn't in the new book. That's mostly because Applications got a lot of stuff right that I wouldn't want to change much even 4 years later, and I didn't want to make readers pay for the same content twice.

I think it's totally fine to start with Applications then if you like it (or if the reviews for the new book make it sound like it's the type of content you'd be interested in) you move on to the new book. It's also fine to read sections of either book and bounce around between them, you don't need to read them cover to cover for the most part.

Can you give recommendations for which parts of Applications I should focus on? I wouldn't know what is out of date or plain incorrect if I were to read it.

Basically, the further we move away from perfectly polarized ranges in a model, the less accurate a model will be.

So, for pre-flop math, when every range that isn't AA has much less than 70% equity against just about any range, it's not that accurate. So if you read that section understand the ranges made in it aren't nearly as good as more modern ranges.

I think I didn't fully appreciate the power of small bets in position when writing Applications like I do now. So also understand that line is underutilized. There's a lot of spots where I probably recommended checking instead of betting (assuming if we bet we'd bet half-pot or so), when in reality a quarter pot-sized bet would probably be best.

Other than that I'd just jump in and see if you like it.