Having burnt several buyins trying to apply his 1% rule (you should usually continue with your hands), am wondering how to apply it.

Say I am the PFRaiser in MP with A2s and there's 4 to the flop. Flop comes JJ5d rainbow, and I cbet about 60% pot. One caller behind, and the Turn comes a Th. The rule says that I should continue with about <70% OOP in heads up situations.

Say that I have a hand in the top 60% of my range here, should I really be continuing to bet here? It seems that although it is heads up on the turn, out of the 3 callers, anyone who has the trip Js is likely to continue, and that I'd be burning money continuing to bet against him. How can I account for this situation where out of several callers, only people with very strong hands are likely to continue with me heads up on the turn and river?

Shouldn't we somehow take into account how many people had a chance to hit it big on a certain board when deciding to apply the 1% rule?

lol.

maybe in a vacuum that rule applies. but players are going to adjust to frequency and table flow.

Never heard of Ed Miller, but he sounds like one of those sh*t live regs from the 2004 era.

I'd just disregard everything he says and play your range vs your opponent's range.

On a JJ5r flop with less than 5 players to the flop, you can probably Cbet your whole range for half pot. Give up later streets if called, even if you turn your Ace.

From reading reviews and whatnot it seems like the book is an attempt to explain GTO-style ideas to a mass audience. The problem is that it looks to be aimed at a beginner-ish audience (with the clickbait title "Poker's 1%: The One Big Secret That Keeps Elite Players On Top" and promise of "one big secret" that will fix your poker game) but it seems likely to be misapplied, as here. The other problem is that there are two circumstances under which these ideas don't really apply:

1) When the pot is multiway
2) When most of your profits come from exploiting people, rather than optimising your own ranges and frequencies.

LLSNL is a game where these two things are usually true. So while I think Miller is a decent thinker and writer and the book is probably fine, the ideas are only going to partially apply and you certainly can't apply any "rules" from what he's saying.

More concretely, rules about what you should do in heads up situations don't apply at all in multiway pots, even if the pot later becomes HU. What he says is only going to apply to pots where 2 people saw the flop.

Don't try to crack poker with "rules", understand and apply ideas.

That book is way too academic for someone starting out, just forget everything you read. I’ll try to answer your questions anyway.

Yes and no. We should be betting a lot on turns but our cbet percentage on the flop multiway should be way lower than if we were heads up and thus we should have a strong range going into the turn. We should also not just be betting our best 60% of hands on the turn; we should be betting most of the top of our range, checking most of the middle of our range and betting some of the bottom of our range that has equity against his calling range or blockers to him having strong hands.

Overall though we should be trying to exploit, not play GTO. If he’s a nit and always has trip jacks when he calls flop, and will never fold trip jacks, then don’t bet unless you have him beat.

I actually read this book when I was starting out myself and I just punted buy ins at 25NL zone trying to apply it before I was ready. Forget about it for now and come back to it in a few months or a year when you have more practice/experience.

Fold preflop.

You are opening too wide in a LLSNL game. This means that you have too little value in your continuing range on the flop and turn. That's why it isn't working for you.

there are a few things to take in here

A2s is probably a loose open from MP

like it's fine if you're doing some Axs (but there are better candidates) or you haven't played a hand in 3 orbits but if you're raising all Axs it's way too loose. And if you start too loose preflop then your postflop ranges are going to be too weak overall no matter what you do.

I haven't read Miller's latest book but I am pretty sure those frequencies only apply to heads up. You can't continue 70% of your range in 5 way pots. You're forced to play face up for the most part because the combined strength of four other hands is too great. Just plug a typical preflop calling range into pokerstove four times and see how often someone has at least one pair here (and your equity against 1p+.) On the flip side, everyone else should generally be playing face up as well.

Ive yet to find a really good player who learned how to play by reading books. As long as people keep writing these books and people keep reading them and trying to play that way, the games are going to be great.

Ive never read one, but every time I hear people talk about the stuff they read in these books its something like what OP wrote. Its ridiculous. GTO crap doesnt work below 10/25.

I dont know if the book says to do that or not, but Cbetting a JJ5 flop 5 ways in completely stupid.

gto "crap" by definition works at any level

it may not be optimal but it will work

I'm sure a stack of his new books will arrive down under by 2023.

This is a key point from the 1% book. You should be continuing with 2/3 of your range HU on most boards, but this assumes that you aren't loading up your range PF with crap.

However, in the hand discussed, OP has A2s on a JJ5 rainbow flop. There is no way that A2s is in the top 2/3 of his PF open raise range on this flop, regardless of whether the hand is HU or not.

Ill agree with that. GTO may "work" but its gonna "work" for about 4-5BBs/hr at low stakes. I see GTO guys come thru my room all the time. Its very obvious who they are. They are almost young, backpack wearing guys who rarely speak. They usually have another guy or two with them playing the exact same robotic style. Their betting patterns are obvious to anyone paying attention (admittedly very few people are paying attention) Its also very easy for anyone paying attention to exploit them (as long as they dont realize they are being targeted by a good player).

If the flop came HU thats probably true, but not when the flop came 5 ways and it just happens to be HU now on the turn.

Yes, it is true that a specific Villain's range is going to be stronger when he is the only one out of multiple opponents who calls a c-bet. However, if we recognize this opponent as being smarter than the average fish we may still have to continue with some of our less than best hands in order not to be exploited.

That's exactly how I learned and I'm sure others have as well. Empiricism is an idiotic approach to learning from random variables that take long periods to converge. Most people simply lack the reading comprehension and memory to properly apply the theory they learn, but that isn't a problem with the books necessarily.

Any poker book should be read like a textbook studying for a college final exam in a difficult course. It's not something to do in a few hours. You wouldn't read a book on abstract algebra like it's Harry Potter. You would carefully read every word and anything you don't understand read again. Work through the examples, complete proofs just sketched out. My mathematics advisor said if you're reading faster than 1 page per hour you are going too fast.

Poker is not as complicated as abstract algebra but its more serious books should be approached the same way. If theres a hand example, do the math. Assign ranges, count combos, do EV calculations to verify the author's conclusions.

I think if people approached poker books like this they could easily learn to crush without ever having played. But if think just skimming through a book or two will make them skilled players, they are mistaken.

I read exactly one. The first part of the book was about all the hookers and blow he got to do by being one of the best online tournament players, talked a lot about his "pulling" technique. Then he got into some hand analysis which made absolutely no sense, mostly talking about blockers, then there was a bunch of analysis from OTHER players that didn't make a bit of sense, mostly about blockers. Read more like a troll of poker than a guide to riches. Also it took me about 1.27 hours to read and it was expensive by book standards.

Let's face it, there are probably no geniuses in poker. They have better things to do

Never heard of Ed Miller but i don't think poker is teachable. You learn by doing and the good players started out good and stayed good, or vice versa

OP didnt mention stack sizes but assuming 100BBs, its going to be very rare anyone is trying to exploit you in a pot like this. (people are rarely exploiting you at all but almost never in a spot like this). There's no room for it.

If this is a 5/5 game and OP opened to $20 and got 4 calls, the pot was $100 on the flop. OP bet 60% of pot and got called so the pot is now $220 on the turn. There's not going to be enough stack size left for any good player to try to float you on the flop and take it way on the turn. People are just about never exploiting anyone in mass 5way pots.

This entire post agrees with me. Ive yet to meet a very good player who learned to play by reading poker books. Maybe you are the one exception, but we havent met.

Most people read poker books as a quick way to get good at poker. As you say, they either misapply everything, try to skim thru it, cant remember what they read, dont understand what they read or whatever.

The only real way to get good at poker is trial and error. Poker books also have no way of teaching you how to read people. That's half the battle in NL.

This thread has denigrated rapidly. I've already deleted one personal attack and there are two other posts that are really close to the line. 6betme and MikeStarr, consider yourselves warned, and let's stop with the "all books are crap" and "I've never heard of person, but he sounds like crap" type posts.

The value of books in general is not the topic of this thread. And if you don't know what is in Ed Miller's 1% book, at least google it before replying IRT the book. Feel free to reply to the example hand, even if you haven't read the book.

OP, welcome to the forum. I agree with those who say that this book is not the best for foundational play. It is best for moving from weak-tight reg to aggressive winning reg.

As far as opening, a few have already mentioned A2s in MP is too loose unless you are in a very weak-tight game where you will likely only get one caller who will usually play fit-or-fold on the flop. If you are getting multiple callers most of the time, stop opening hands that weak. Also, consider your sizing.

As far as c-betting, I recommend you read the Concept of the Month on c-bets in this forum, closely. In terms of your example hand, you are too multi-way and most LLSNL Vs tend to be non-believers on paired flops.

That book is specifically for LLSNL and Ed Miller is one of the best. He advocates for making reads and exploiting the piss out of them.

This is likely why the op bought the book in the first place. Likely, the concept of being first to act with 5 potential callers was not a frequent example in the book, and thus the op made this thread.

LLSNL is probably a target audience for many (if not most) of the Holdem books from 2+2, and Ed Miller is the best at keeping it understandable to a regular player, favoring method over complicated mathematics.

Have read most Ed Miller books. Not 1% though. Definitely good material to learn from. Far better option than this forum. IMO

I also play "crap" GTO to a degree. Meaning, If you are balanced player. I will pay you off. In return for playing a balanced game, I get paid off at a rate that is astonishing. Also bluff more than is likey optimal, for a loose aggro image.

Even though I haven't read 1%. These observations are likely true.

-OP not ready to open A2s from MP
-Ed not advocating c-betting 100% on this flop
-Ed not advocating high cbet percentage into multi-way
pot.

-Ed has alost always wrote "Tag" books. I assume his ranges didn't change drastically in 1%.

-likely not suggested to barrel 70% of your range. Continuing in hand likely is meant to incorporate Calling, Checking, and raising also

A lot of what he wrote in 2000's is outdated. So you will have to be ready to make adjustments, and be self aware.

@ChrisV Your view that the rule shouldn't apply if it was multiway earlier later makes more sense to me. I think it should be weaker, with consideration for a villain's range and bluffing tendencies. Here's what Miller writes about this after the two rules:

```
Preflop is another story. It’s right to play tight preflop, but not because preflop is some special street. It’s because preflop is usually played very multiway. The rules kick in once the field narrows to two players. (Weaker versions of the rules apply to three- and four-way pots as well.)

So if you’re playing heads-up, the rules apply from the moment the cards are dealt. Otherwise, you’re playing tight preflop in a 9-handed game, but usually by the turn you’re in a situation where the rules demand that you stop with all the folding.
```

So he thinks the rules should still kick in later after a multiway pot, interestingly.

@venice10 @DK Barrel @Garick If I'm playing in a non-3-bet heavy game, a 17.65% PFR range is too high for LOJACK here? What would be best to get rid of, low pairs, ace suit rags? 22+, A2s+, KTs+, Q9s+, J9s+, 76s+, AJo+, KJo+. I'm guessing it's simply too many hands and people could play against my weak range or just 3-bet me right?

@DrChessPain A-high with BDFD may not be in the top 70% of my range, but the situation doesnt look much better/different for AQo+ or 22+ for which I would have the same question for.

@Garick I raise a standard 5x+1 for each limper in EP and 4x+ in MP+. If I start raising 7x to get fewer to the flop, I'm worried about how to adjust my range - seems like I'd have to polarize into Strong and Weak hands.

@mikko Continuing as defined by Miller means bet/call/raising specifically.



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Don't adjust your range at all. You should be aiming to get most pots HU or if people do start calling like dominoes, its better to get it 6-7 ways. Getting to the flop 4-5 ways is the nut worst in most cases.

4-5 ways you have no wiggle room. You either flop a monster or you give up. One pair is not going to be good very often. Mostly its going to cause you to put more money in the pot and then lose.

If you happen to have raised something like A2s or 87s, you will win lots of pots with nothing if its HU and you will win huge pots when you flop big and it goes 6-7 ways, just like when you call a raise with those hands after many other callers.

Raising a size preflop to try and get the pot 2-3 ways at these levels is fruitless endeavor. A lot of wasted energy and $$$ doing so.

Live 9 handed poker. Is played multi-way at all levels of poker. Instead of raising 10x to try and isolate strong hands. Adjust your raising range to environment. And learn to play multi way pots.

Raising 5x and getting 5 callers, with AJ. Plays easier for most part. Than raising 10x and getting 1 caller. Sure you win the pot less. But you are winning larger pots on average.

If they are actually playing something in the ballpark of a GTO strategy you by definition can’t exploit them. If you are talking about the 20’s hoodie wearing headphone guy that bluffs everything because they watched a training video then yea you can exploit them.